Andrea Jackson and the Lightning Thief
by OneOfTheGuys411102
Summary: Andrea Jackson was never normal. After a teacher-related mishap, she gets plunged into the world of the greek gods and somehow she angered a few of them. Zeus master bolt has been stolen and she is the prime suspect. Now she has 10 days to return his property and prevent WWIII, no pressure or anything. This is my gender bender Percy Jackson. Fem!Percy & Male!Annabeth
1. Prologue

**December 22nd, 2005: ****Mount. Olympus**

"Zeus, I've already told you I didn't take your stupid lightning bolt," Poseidon said in a bored tone. His brother, Zeus has been yelling at him for the past hour accusing him for stealing his master bolt.

"Oh I know _you _didn't steal it," The king of Gods said with a smirk that implied that he knew something that Poseidon didn't. The rest of the council started paying attention again, looking up from the things they were doing and all looked at Zeus in question.

"Then why are we having this conversation?" Poseidon said sitting up straight on his throne and griping his trident.

"You thought you could hide her from me, didn't you?"

The sea king gripped his triton harder, "Who?"

"Oh, the child you sired 12 years ago, of course," many goddesses in the room gasped. "Who else could of taken' the bolt. You distracted me, while she snuck into the throne room, took the bolt, and now she as it," Zeus finished.

"I don't know what you are talking about, brother." Poseidon said as a attempt to convince his brother that he didn't have a daughter.

"No?" I image flashed in front of the council, it showed a young girl wrapped in a thin coat, her black messy hair was tied up in a high ponytail and she was wearing ear muffs. She was drawing something on the sidewalk. The gods watched with eagerness having only seen the back of her head, most wanting to get a good look at the first daughter of Poseidon. The girl stopped drawing, stood up, and backed up to admire her drawing.

Seeing the picture Apollo and Hermes burst out laughing, It has a devil figure in the snow and a man next to it with his head bowed saying, 'why do all my snow angel always end up like that?'

Somewhere someone called, "ANDRE!"

The girl finally looked up with a smile on her face and no one could deny she was the sea gods daughter. They had identical sea green eyes, black hair, and the same smile.

"Well, if this isn't your daughter I guess you wouldn't care if she dies." Zeus said and thunder started booming, causing Andre to look up at the sky.

Poseidon stood up from his throne gripping his triton, "If you hurt her..."

The thunder stopped and Zeus faced his brother, "If your daughter doesn't return the master bolt by the end of the summer solstice she will die."

"By the same day, I expect an apology for your accusations."

With that the king of the gods left the throne room and Poseidon sat back down with a sigh.

The rest of the council remained. Hestia came down from her hearth to her brother's side and placed a hand on his shoulder. Poseidon looked at his sister and then at the other Olympians with a sad look, "She doesn't even know we exist."

He brushed off Hestia's hand and left.

Hestia looked back at the image of her niece, an woman that was no doubt her mother, and an old woman that looked vaguely familiar.


	2. Chapter 1

**I changed the name of my character half-way through so if you see Lola instead of Andre then ignore it. **

**T****his is basically the same Percy Jackson you all know and love except He's a She with a different attitude, oh, and she can speak spanish, because her grandmother was a Spaniard and taught her daughter (sally) and Sally taught Andre. Also, she's smart, because face it Percy is kind of... well, you know. And Annabeth is now Justin Chase, but other than that it has the same plot and characters. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Percy Jackson series.**

* * *

Look, being a half-blood isn't all sunshine, rainbows, and lollipops. Far from it actually.

If your reading this and you think you might be one, close this book right now. Believe what ever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to live a normal life.

I didn't ask to be a half-blood, it's dangerous, scary, and get most killed in painful, nasty ways. Yet, it does have some have advantages.

Anyway, back to what I was saying. If you're a normal kid read on. I envy you for being able to believe all this is fiction...that all this never happened.

I must warn you again, if you recognize yourself in this book - if you feel something stirring inside - stop reading. It's possible you one of us and once you know, it's only a matter of time before _they_ sence it. _They'll_ find you. And _Kill_ you.

* * *

My name is Andre Jackson.

I'm twelve years old. Up untill a few months ago, I was a boarding school student at Yancy Academy, a private School for troubled kids in upstate new york.

Am I a troubled kid?

Uh... I'm not that bad, but I will admit to having a temper and... Yep, I am a _little_ bit troubled.

I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove that point, but things really started going bad last may. When Yancy Academy's sixth - grade class took a field trip to Manhattan. We were going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient greek and roman stuff.

I was actually looking forward to going.

The trip was led by Mr. Brunner was my latin teacher, he's a middle-aged guy in a motorized wheel chair. He had thinning hair, a scruffy beard, and a frayed tweed jacket. When I first walked into his classroom, I admit, I thought it would be a really boring class. But I was wrong and Latin class became my favorite class, because Mr. Brunner told stories, jokes, and let us play games.

I desperately hoped this trip would be okay, that I wouldn't get or cause trouble. But my record is against me.

See, bad things always happen to me on field trips. Like my school in fifth - grade, took us to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a revolutionary war cannon. I swear, I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I was expelled anyway. Also, in forth - grade we took a behind - the - scenes tour of the marine world shark pool, I accidentally hit this lever on the controls for the catwalk and ... let's just say that the class took an unplanned swim. And before that ... well you get the idea.

This trip, I was determined for nothing to happen, no fires, no poisonous snakes and wild animals, no people who almost got cleaved, and no zombies.

* * *

In the lobby of the metropolitan museum of art everything was chaos, overrun by the twenty - eight mental case kids that, unfortunately, I had class with. One thing that stood out was a girl with pitch black hair sitting ten feet away from the causes of the apocalypse. She was calm and mostly still.

She had a sketch pad in hand, pencil in the other, and every other moment look up at the glass doors then back down. At first you wouldn't that she belonged with those animals, she was civilized, but then you notice she was in the same group as the preteen terrorists and you stayed away from her.

That girl is me.

I leaned back on my tote bag and compared the fountain that was just outside to the drawing I had just finished. I started closing my sketch pad when a piece of a sandwich plopped down on the manila paper. I flicking it away before the ketchup or peanut butter could seep on to the paper.

I took a deep breath to keep myself from decking the culprit and looked up to face Nancy Bobofit. Nancy is a freckly, redhead kleptomaniac girl, who just love messing with me since the beginning of the year. I never gave any reaction to her and for some odd reason, instead getting bored and leaving me alone, like any normal bully, she just kept on going.

I sighed, 1... 2... 3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10... I stood up, shoved my sketch pad into my bag, and walked away. It took everything to keep myself from decking Nancy right there and then. I started focusing on the weather, which had been strange since winter break, the even stranger thing was it seemed as if i was the only one that noticed it.

"MS. JACKSON!"

I jumped and turned to face the owner of the voice, Mrs. Dodds. Mrs. Dodds had it out for me ever since she replaced my old algebra teacher in the middle of the year. She had a permanent scowl tattooed on to her face and always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was over fiffty years old.

On her first day, she decided that Nancy was an angel sent by god and I was a demon kicked out of hell. When she would glare at me and say, "honey," real sweetly I just knew she was going to give me detention and work me until midnight.

I put on a sweet innocent smile, "Yes, Mrs. Dodds?"

She glared at me harder, "The tour has started."

I looked around to see everyone has moved on except Grover. Grover was a crippled, scrawny kid, who cried when he got frustrated, and, to top it all off, he was my stalker. He followed me everywhere and sat next to me in every class. We weren't even friends, but apparently he thought other wise.

"Hey, the rest of the class is over there." Grover said pointing down the hallway.

I just walked past him. Yes, I guess that was rude, but I tended to keep ... I never ... my last friend ... I'm a loner. When I rejoined the class Mr. Bunner was talking about Greek funeral art.

Nancy and her band of morons were giggling at every little thing. I tried to ignore it, but their nasly laughter filled my ears. Finally I cracked, "Will you _shut up_?"

That came out A LOT louder then I ment it to.

The whole class laughed. Mr. Bunner stopped his story, "Ms. Jackson did you have a comment?"

My face was emotionless, "No, sir."

Mr. Bunner pointed at a picture on a stele, "Perhaps you can tell us what this picture represents?"

I looked at the carving, "That's Kronos eating his kids."

"Yes, and..."

"Kronos was the Titan King and he got a prophecy that his kids would over throw him, so as soon as they were born he would eat them. But his wife, Rhea, hid one, Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead," I smirked, _Idoit,_ "Later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his father into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"

"EEW!" One of the girls behind me exclaimed.

"- then there was a war between the gods and titans and the gods won."

Behind me, Nancy mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids."

"Yes, Ms. Jackson," Mr. Brunner said, "why does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Grover muttered.

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face bright red.

I thought about his question and frowned, "I'm sorry, but I don't know, sir."

Mr. Brunner looked a little disappointed, "Still, Full credit, ms. Jackson. Now I belive it's time to take a break, Mrs. dodds will you lead us outside?"

The class drifted off, girls holding their stomachs, the guys acting like idiots. I was about to follow when Mr. Brunner called me back.

I sighed and turned, "Yes, sir?"

"You must learn the answer about real life. I only expect the best from you, Alejandrina Jackson."

This guy pushed me so hard. I'm diagnosed with dyslexia, attention deficit disorder and never made above a B in my life. Like all the other teachers I ever had, he didn't expect me as _good_ as the other students, but unlike the others, he expected me to be _better_. I study all the time just to keep my grades at a B.

I mumbled something about trying harder and went outside to eat my lunch.

* * *

The class gathered on the front step of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, there were clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. The weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. Nobody seemed to notice. Well, no one but me.

I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. I thought that maybe if I did that, everybody wouldn't know I was from that school―the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Detention?" Grover asked taking a seat next to me.

"No."

Grover didn't say anything for a while. Until, "Can I have your apple?"

"No" _Ah, I am a woman of many words._

I looked at Grover and hurt was written across his face, so, I let him take the apple. As a peace offering and to try to make up for my rudeness, because he didn't do anything to me.

I turned to the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head for home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy with a reminder that she loves me.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair/motorized cafe table at the base of the handicapped ramp.

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends―I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists―and dumped her half-eaten lunch in my lap.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

I tried to stay cool. The school counsellor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper."

But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.

`I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Andre pushed me!"

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see―"

"―the water―"

"―like it grabbed her―"

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble... again.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure _poor, little_ Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. I was never really nice to him and Mrs. Dodds scared Grover half to death just by looking at him.

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But―"

"You―will―stay―here."

Grover looked at me desperately.

"It's okay," I told him offering a smile. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."

Nancy Bobofit smirked.

I gave her my I'll-kill-you-later glare, I was satisfied when I saw her flinch.

Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.

How'd she get there so fast?

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

I wasn't so sure.

I cautiously walked after Mrs. Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.

I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

_Okay,_ I thought. _She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop._

I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling. Even with the noise, I wasn't nervous.

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.

"I give everyone 'problems'."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.

Yet, I looked into her eyes, "I didn't do anything."

Thunder shook the building.

"We are not fools, Andre Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."

I didn't know what she was talking about.

"Well?" she demanded.

"I don't..."

"Your time is up," she hissed.

Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons. She was a Fury.

Then, Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a bracelet in his hand.

"What ho, Andre!" he shouted, and tossed the blacelet through the air.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at me. I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the necklace with a single charm out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a bracelet anymore. It was a sword―Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.

I tightened my grip on the sword.

She snarled, "Die, honey!"

And she flew straight at me.

Fear sent shivers through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!

She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

I was alone.

There was a bracelet in my hand.

My hands were trembling._What just happpened?_

I clipped the necklace on and went back outside. It had started to rain.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

I said, "Who?"

"Our teacher. Duh!"

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr, Nancy is stupider than I thought and _that's_ saying something.

I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?"

But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

"Not funny," I told him. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead and I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.

I went over to him.

"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Andre, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"

Rain started pouring down and washed the look of confusion of my face, leaving it emotionless, "I'm fine."

I walked back to the fountain where my bag was waiting, passing screaming idiots.

_It's rain! It's not going to hurt you!_

I looked in the fountain watching the ripples of water. I turned my attention to my reflection, I had fear and confusion in my eyes. The confusion took over when I noticed that I still had on the bracelet that Mr. Brunner supposedly given me to defend myself against Mrs. Dodds.

_What's going on?_


	3. Chapter 2

**A reminder that this is my first story so if you have anything to say about it be kind. Although, I've gotten good reviews so Thanks Y'all. Just something else I forgot to mention in chapter 1, Andre has reading glasses in hope that it will help her focus on the words and help with her dyslexia. **

** I swear that there will be no Fem!Percy/Luke outside of her saying he's handsome on my best friend's, Samina, life. If I break it I will take the dull axe I've got in my garage and chase after her with it.**

** Okay now I need to explain my thinking, Her being hispanic is part of making her my own and not just a female Percy where I just changed the name. The story will also develop on the idea that she knows spanish. **

**Now for the Male Annabeth, i haven't come across a Fem!percy/Male!annabeth story so I wanted to try to and I thank the open-minded readers for not taking one look at the summary and deciding not to give it a Chance.**

**I won't make Riptide a necklace, but Andre will have more weapons so one of those are going to be a necklace. **

**Alejandrine's nickname is pronounced 'An' like Anne, then 'dur' like in Derp, then 're' like in Marie.**

**Thank you to all that followed, favorite this story, or Reviewed. **

* * *

I was used to an occasional weird experience, but they were always over quickly.

This twenty-four/seven hallucination was...intresting and I know this sounds crazy, but I don't think that It was a hallucination. Still, the students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

Something was going on. Something _had _happened at the museum.

I didn't think much about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat. I hated that. I hated that I had a fear that may or may not be real. I hated being weak and confused.

The freak weather continued and one night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room.

A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from B's to C's. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot.

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy. Good riddance.

I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties. And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods outside my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been good... company, even if he was a little strange.

As exam week got closer I studied day and night. I was determined to make my mother proud, even though I got kicked out, again.

The evening before my Latin final, I got so frustrated I threw the _Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology _across my dorm room.

Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. I couldn't read any of it, not even with my glasses.

I paced the room, feeling like picking up the book and ripping out each page one by one. I took a deep breath and picked up the mythology book and set it on my bed. Then decided to take a walk around the school, just to clear my head and I knew how not to get caught.

I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.

I was three steps past the door when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said, _"..._ worried about Andre, sir."

I froze.

I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your stalker talking about you to an adult.

I inched closer.

"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the _school_! Now that we know for sure, and _they _know too—"

"We would only make matters worse by rushing her," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the girl to mature more."

"But she may not have time. The summer solstice dead line—_"_

"Will have to be resolved without her, Grover. Let her enjoy her ignorance while she still can."

"Sir, she _saw _her..."

"Her imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince her of that."

"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Andre alive until next fall. Go back to the dorm, you've got a long day of exams tomorrow."

"Don't remind me."

The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.

I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.

Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm and started getting ready for bed.

I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.

But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd written, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.

For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.

"Andre," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."

His tone was kind, but the words were embarrassing. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips. And I graciously flipped her off.

"Okay, sir."

"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."

My face went emotionless. I couldn't believe it, here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.

"Right," I said in monotone.

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Andre. That's nothing to be—"

But I was already gone.

On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase. I paused at the bracelet and picked it up observing it. It had 10 or so golden bangles connected by a jeweled sword. I've spent hours before staring at it wondering, _how could have this turned in to a three-foot bronze sword? _

I sighed, slipped it on and lugged my suitcase out of my dorm.

The other girls were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were _rich _juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.

They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.

What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job at my 'Aunt' Rosie's Candy shop (the same one where my mom worked at) and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.

"Oh," one of the girl said. "That's cool."

They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.

Grover was on the same Greyhound of me, surprise, surprise. I sank into the chair trying to block out everything.

Yet, I was still painfully aware that during the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen.

Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.

He tapped my shoulder to get my attention from his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."

The card was in fancy script, which was... hard on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:

_Grover Underwood_

_Keeper_

_Half-Blood Hill_

_Long Island, New York_

_(800)_ _009-0009 _

"What's Half—"

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address... if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

It came out harsher than I meant it to.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Andre, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."

I stared at him.

He was in _crutches _and here he was acting like he was the one who defended _me. _Besides, I can take care of myself.

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and steered the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.

We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand. The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice_._There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting something that looked like a big pair of socks.

I mean they were the size of sweaters, but they were socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn. All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.

I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.

"Grover?" I said.

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Do you think those socks would fit me?"

"Not funny, Andre."

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears.

I heard Grover catch his breath.

"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

I just ignored him and just watched the old ladies.

"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that _snip_ across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks and left. Who where they? Where they human or like Mrs. Dodds?

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.

"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, which was weird since I haven't caught anything since 4th grade.

Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

"Grover?"

"Yeah?"

"What's going on?"

He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Andre, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

Looking out the window I remained quiet for a minute, reviewing over what happened, "They're like Mrs. Dodds, aren't they?"

It wasn't a question, but a statement.

His expression was hard to read, "Just tell me what you saw."

"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might have been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something much older.

He said, "You saw her snip the cord."

"Yeah."

"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?"

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

"What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."

This seemed like a strange request to me.

I gave no answer.

"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"

He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.

I had my answer.

* * *

**Please Review.**


	4. Chapter 3

**Sadly I don't speak spanish, so, every spanish speaking part will be underlined. **

* * *

I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.

I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"

Right after we got off the bus he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.

"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.

* * *

A word about my mother, before you meet her.

Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.

Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was nine, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.

The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.

I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile.

My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.

See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.

Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.

She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid, no even close.

Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class a-hole. When I was young, I nick named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts... on good days.

Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.

I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.

Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."

"Where's my mom?"

"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"

That was it. No _Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months? _Figures.

Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tusk less walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.

He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "Father- Daughter secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.

Or at least try to.

"I don't have any cash," I told him.

He raised a greasy eyebrow.

Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.

"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, she ought to carry her own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"

Notice how he said she, meaning me and my mom.

Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "She just got here."

"Am I _right_?_"_Gabe repeated.

Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.

I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table and sneered, "Good luck."

I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.

I dropped my suitcase on the bed while I wrinkled my nose from the stench. Home sweet home.

Then I heard my mom's voice. "Andre?"

She opened the bedroom door, and I gave her a wide smile.

My mother is a spanish beauty with that eyes sparkle and change color in the light, something that she always said we shared. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long dark brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad.

I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe, that's something I didn't inherit from her.

"Oh, Andre." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"

Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.

We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about me getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her baby girl doing all right?

I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and as soon as she let go I hugged her in an equally tight hug. She laughed, I know I can _always_ count on her to believe I can do the impossible. No matter what, all just because she's my mother.

From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"

I gritted my teeth and clinched my fist.

My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should be married to a millionaire, not to some gambling drunkard like Gabe.

For her sake, I sounded upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said, drama queen.

I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.

Until that trip to the museum ...

"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"

"No, Mom."

I felt bad lying, but I didn't want to worry her.

She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.

"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."

My eyes widened. "Montauk?"

"Three nights—same cabin."

"When?"

She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."

I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.

Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"

I was planing Gabe's _tragic _death when I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.

"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."

Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"

"I knew it," I muttered glaring at him. "He won't let us go."

"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."

Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"

_What she hasn't had something new in... I don't remember the last time she got some new clothes._

"Yes, honey," my mother said.

"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."

"We'll be very careful."

Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."

_Maybe if I get to kick you out the window,_ I thought.

But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.

Why did she put up with this guy?

I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?

"I'm sorry," I sneered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your _important_ poker game. Please go back to it right now."

Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.

_Don't strain yourself._

"Yeah, whatever," he decided.

He went back to his game.

"Thank you, Andre," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"

For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.

But then her smile returned. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.

An hour later we were ready to leave.

Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.

"Not a scratch on this car, brain girl," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."

Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve.

But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.

Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon.

I took a moment to process that, before a wide smile broke out on my face.

I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.

* * *

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.

I loved the place.

We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.

As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the colour of the sea.

We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.

I guess I should explain the blue food.

See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me. Well, maybe I don't exactly have a _streak_.

When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.

"He was kind, Andre," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."

Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Andre. He would be so proud."

I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive girl with a B- report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.

"How old was I when he left?" I aked slipping into my 'native' language. When I was younger, to pratice my Spanish and English, I would slip in and out of the language at a random time. After a while it became a habit and sometimes I would start speaking spanish and not even notice, although I would try my best not to do it at school.

She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Andre. Right here at this beach. This cabin."

"But... he knew me as a baby."

"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."

I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.

I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me.

I felt confused, because I was always sure that... I knew him. Maybe he didn't want me, I mean he'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.

"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"

She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.

"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."

"You don't want me around?"

My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Andre, no. I—I _have _to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."

"I understand mom," I said.

"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Andre. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."

"Safe?"

She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, freaky things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.

During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.

Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

In _every_ single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.

I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that for both me and her.

"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Andre—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."

"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"

"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."

My head was spinning. Why would my dad talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?

"I'm sorry, Andre," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."

"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."

She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry. I around the fire to her spot and hugged her, resting my head on her shoulder.

"Mom?"

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"You'll never say goodbye to me," I said. "Not for good."

She sighed and started stroking my hair. We both sat in silence watching the fire, untill, "Mom?"

She looked at me to show that she was paying attention.

"My father... he cared about me, right?" I asked innocently.

"Andre," she started in a soft tone. "Of course he does."

"How do you know?"

"Because I saw the look in his eyes when I told him about you... he didn't want to leave, he had to."

I nodded, "I understand."

I turned my attention to the sea and watched the waves for a little while. Sinking in to the hold of one of the two people I cared about in the world, I relaxed.

* * *

That night I had a vivid dream.

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.

The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion.

I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, _Look out!_

I woke with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.

With the next thunder-clap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."

I Looked outside with wide eyes. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.

Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.

Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.

My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.

Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't...

"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"

My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.

"Andre," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

I was frozen, looking at Grover.

_"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!"_he yelled.

"It's right behind me! Didn't you _tell _her?"

I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—

My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before:_"Alejandrine! _Tell me_now_!"

I gave her a brief story about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you._Go_!"

I snatched my bag and followed my mother's wishes.

Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.

Because his feet weren't feet, but cloven hooves.


	5. Chapter 4

**I'm glad so many people like my story. You all are awesome and your reviews make my day! Speaking of reviews, FavFan, No Poseidon won't be _Over_protective and the other gods won't like her (She can't keep her mouth shut around them and just loves insulting them), neither will most demigods. She's one of those people who all people hate, because she rude, blunt, or speaks their mind. But as some spend time with her, she grows on them.**

**In this chapter Andre isn't in her right mind, because of recent events. Don't worry she'll be back to normal before the end of the chapter.**

**I also have a request: If anyone out threre can make an awesome image to go with this story I will Love you forever. Put the website address in a review or something, Thank You!**

**I hope I didn't give too much away and enjoy Andre's meltdown. **

* * *

We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.

Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I hoped he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants and that this all wasn't happening. But It was all very real, especially the smell.

The smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.

All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"

Graver's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."

"So you _are_ a stalker?"

I clamped my hand over my mouth, _I can't believe I said that OUT LOAD and TO HIS FACE. __Okay Andre, just take a deep breath and keep your eyes open. Something is scaring mom and Grover the donkey._

"I am _not _a stalker, I was Keeping tabs on you-"

"Stalker." I sang. I was acting a little out odd, but I like to see you go through something like this and come out in your right mind.

"-Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I _am _your friend."

That last part got to me and I smiled, "Well it's nice to know that from the waist down, my friend is a donkey—"

Grover let out a sharp, throaty "_Blaa-ha-ha_!"

I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat. He was half-donkey all this time?

"Goat!" he cried.

"What?"

"I'm a _goat _from the waist down."

"All right, all right. Sorry... Donkey."

"_Blaa-ha-ha_! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"

"Satyrs. I thought they were myths?" Then, I looked at Grover's appearance and started cackling madly.

"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a _myth,_ Andre? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"

For the first time since we left the beach I was completely silent and still, "You made me half mad, thinking that Mrs. Dodds wasn't real."

"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."

_Who I am? I know who I am. My name is Alejandrine Dianthe Pelagia Jackson, better known as Andre. I have a 'Aunt' whose not my actual aunt named Rosie, she's my mother boss, and she calls me Jannie. I have an Amazing mother named Sally Alejandrina Jackson, who never raised her voice at me and she always believes I will do great things. I have an absent and possibly dead father, whose name I don't even know. I try my hardest in school, but always get kicked out. When I grow up I want to be... someone who will make a difference. _

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

"Andre," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."

"Safety from what?"

"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."

_Blood... Yum-Yum._

"Grover!"

"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"

My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.

"What is this place?" I asked with a goofy smile, the madness within has reemerged.

"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."

"The place you didn't want me to go."

"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."

"Because some old ladies cut yarn."

"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."

"Whoa. You said 'you.'"

"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"

"You meant 'you.' As in _me._"

"I meant _you, _like 'someone.' Not you, _you._"

"Children!" my mom said.

She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.

"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."

I didn't know where _there _was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive. All while giggling, because due to recent events I was waltzing through crazy town.

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. I was right, she _was_ real. Did she really have a husband? Where was the wedding? Was he blind?

Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Glancing at the bracelet I was currently wearing, I opened My mouth to ask Grover about that, then the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling _boom!, _and our car exploded.

I remember feeling weightless, then like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time. _Heh-heh, Car went boom-boom._

I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "I should've worn a seatbelt. Click it or ticket."

"Andre!" my mom shouted.

"I'm okay..."

I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.

Lightning.

That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road.

Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. He looked dead. Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.

"Andre," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.

I swallowed hard. "Who is—"

"Andre," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."

My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof the edges were sizzling and smoking.

"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Andre—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"

_"What?"_

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.

"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."

"Mom, you're coming too."

Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

"No!" I shouted. "You _are _coming with me. Help me carry Grover."

"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.

The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he _couldn't _be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns…

Man, he is _ugly._

"He doesn't want _us_," my mother told me. "He wants _you. _Besides, I can't cross the property line."

"But..."

"We don't have time, Andre. Go. Please."

I got mad, mad at my mother, at Grover the donkey, at Mr. Ugly with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.

I pushed the door open into the rain and Grover after it, he's going to have mud in his fur for weeks. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."

"I told you—"

"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."

I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, after putting on my backpack I started dragging Grover from the car. He _needed _to lay off the enchiladas, I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.

Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.

Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of _Muscle Man _magazine (secretly known as 'steroids, we do')—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under wear— I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—despide the situation , I laughed. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.

His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.

I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us.

I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"

"Pasiphae's son," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you. Don't say his name, names have power."

I nodded, I was slowly regaining my sanity.

The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.

I glanced behind me again.

The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.

"Food?" Grover moaned.

I slapped him, hard. He's still out cold.

"Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"

"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."

As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

_Not a scratch,_

I remembered Gabe saying.

Oops.

"Andre," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"

"How do you know all this?"

"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."

"Keeping me near you? But—"

Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.

He'd smelled us.

The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.

The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.

My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Andre! Separate! Remember what I said."

I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.

He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.

The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.

The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.

We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.

The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.

"Run, Andre!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"

But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.

"Mom!"

She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"

Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.

I let out a sob and whispered, "No."

I cracked. Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons. I reached for the bracelet, in my hand it transformed into a familiar bronze sword.

I stepped towards the Minotaur, my head held high and an emotionless expression plastered on to face. With each step I took I though of different ways to take him down with knowledge of fighting that I never knew I had, but welcomed as if I knew it my whole life.

"You want me?! You got me!" I said raising the sword and taking a fighting stance.

The Minotaur charged.

Time slowed down.

I felt of aware of everything around me. The rain pouring down, the lightning that lit up the sky almost every second, Grover's chest moving from where he was behind the Minotaur, forgotten. I was aware of the pine tree,_ the border of a camp that is supposed to protect me. _Grover can get past it, I realized. There was roughly 30 feet between him and the huge tree.

I plan formed in my mind, first a distraction.

When the Minotaur came close, I swiftly moved a few feet to the side and stuck the sword into his stomach. He let out a roar that woke the whole island.

I ran.

To Grover.

This time he was a lot lighter than he was back at the car. With a grunt I picked him up and heaved him to the tree. I was half-way when I noticed that the Minotaur was recovering faster than I anticipated and quickened my pace, no matter how much my legs protested.

I practically threw Grover over past the tree, eager to face my opponent.

I faced the monster once again, he looked angrier and cluched my sword as if he wastrying to break it. He let out a frusterated growl and threw the sword into a tree making a chunk of it reduce into splinters.

I laughed and smirkered mockingly, "What? The big bad monster can't break a tiney tiny sword. Awwwwwww."

He charged, yet again.

My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.

The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes and my hair stuck to my face. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.

The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.

I was about to let go when, I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—_snap!_

The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.

The monster charged.

Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.

The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.

The monster was gone.

The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking.

I walked over past the tree that was missing a huge chunk of bark and found the golden bracelet. Slipping it on, I stumbled towards Grover.

My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and trembling with grief. I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house.

The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a handsome boy with messy blond hair.

They both looked down at me, and the boy said, "She's the one. She must be."

"Silence, Justin,"

the man said. "She's still conscious. Bring her inside."


	6. Chapter 5

**Don't worry she will make friends, it's just her personality is a little hard to explain. **

**Thank you for the reviews, enjoy and remember any spanish is underlined.**

* * *

I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food. I guess I wasn't quite finished visiting crazy town.

I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The boy with messy blond hair hovered over me, smirking.

When he saw my eyes open, he asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"

I managed to croak, "What?"

He looked around, as if afraid someone would over hear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"

I narrowed my eyes at him.

Somebody knocked on the door, and the boy quickly filled my mouth with pudding. That was no appreciated.

The next time I woke up, the boy was gone.

A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them- on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.

When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.

On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.

My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.

"Careful," a familiar voice said.

Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.

Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, Not the goat boy.

So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And...

"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."

Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.

Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.

"It happened, it actually happened," I said.

Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"

"My mom. Is she really ..."

He looked down.

I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.

My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.

"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm- I'm the worst satyr in the world."

He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.

"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.

Thunder rolled across the clear sky.

As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it.

Grover was a donkey-satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head.

But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even the minotaur. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.

I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe?

No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. Even before that I'm sure Aunt Rosie would take me in, right?

Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid- poor donkey, satyr, whatever- looked as if he expected to be hit.

I said, "It wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was. I was supposed to _protect _you."

"Because your a keeper?" I said pulling out the card that he gave me from my backpack.

He nodded, "At least... I was."

"Is this camp-ha-" I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.

"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.

"I can do-" I sighed, cutting myself off. "Thanks."

I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies.

And not just any cookies- my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just kissed my head, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.

I silently finished the warm drink with ice cubes in it.

"Was it good?" Grover asked.

I nodded.

"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful.

"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Homemade."

He sighed. "And how do you feel?"

"Good."

"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff"

"What do you mean?"

He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."

_Wha'? Did he just say Chiron?_I shrugged and followed donkey boy.

The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.

My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.

As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.

We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture: an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena; except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail and some of their horses had wings.

While I was looking at the sence someone ran into my back, "_Oaf." _

The person was knocked to the ground. I turned around to find a very young girl, she might've been two or even three, maybe even for. She has dirty blonde hair with blonde highlights due to the sun, tanned skin, and emerald green eyes. Her eyes where beautiful and at the moment looking at me with horror, her lip quivering, "Oh My Gods! I'm sorry."

She was missing her two front teeth, so I had a little trouble understanding her. If it was another person I would have snapped at them, but she was just too cute. "Don't worry about it sweetheart. What's your name?"

"Summer."

"I'm Andre. Nice to meet you Summer."

I held out my hand to her and she shook it with both of hers and a large smile. Then, I heard laugher and turned to see boys a couple years older than the young girl. Turning my attention back to the girl about to give her words of comfort, like my ...mom...,but I only saw her back.

I sighed, again- I've been doing that a lot lately. Before going to where I've seen Grover disappear to.

Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired boy who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.

The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park.

He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step father.

"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The boy, that's Justin Chase. He's just a camper, but he's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron..."

He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.

First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.

"Mr. Brunner!" I cried. "You're Chiron?"

The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers _B_. Ha Ha, I loved that, mostly because I got an A on it.

"Ah, good, Andre," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."

He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."

"Only if you don't expect me to be glad to see _you_." I glanced at him again before looking away, _if _there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.

"Justin?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond boy.

He came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young man nursed you back to health, Andre. Justin, why don't you go check on Andre's bunk? We'll be putting her in cabin eleven for now."

Justin said, "Sure, Chiron."

He was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With his deep tan and his curly blond hair, he was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California guy would look like, except his eyes ruined the image.

They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if he were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.

He glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I sat the box on the table, where I was able to keep it in my vision and held out my hand, "Alejandrine Jackson, better known as Andre."

He looked at my hand as if he shook it he would die in the next few hours. Nevertheless, as I was withdrawing my hand he took it and gave one strong shake, "Justin."

Then he sprinted off down the lawn.

"So," I said. "You're Chiron?"

"Yes." the ex-Mr. Brunner said, a little surprised that I remembered.

"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And what does Mr. D stand for?"

Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just danced across the room, singing/belching 'small world'. "Young lady, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."

"Sorry." I said airily and more quietly added. "cherub."

"I must say, Andre," Chiron broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."

"House call?"

"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... ah, take a leave of absence."

I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a memory of another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.

"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.

Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."

"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"

"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of Mr. D. _Ahhhh, _run for your lives it's a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt. And the imaginary people run around the room, which is now imaginary chaos.

"You _do _know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.

"I'm sure I can pick it up," I said.

"I'm sure I can pick it up ,_sir_," he said.

I was liking the camp director less and less. So, I smiled at him sweetly, "I know you love the happy juice, Mr. D, but you need to seriously lay off it if you can't tell I'm not a dude."

Then, I started off into space waiting for the game to start and effectually ignoring his glare.

"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all _civilized _young ladies to know the rules."

"Well then, it is clear I'm not a _civilized young lady_." To prove it I let out a large, long burp.

"I'm sure the girl can learn," Chiron said.

"Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Chiron, why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"

Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."

The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile. Poor donkey.

Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know _I _was his star student. He expected _me _to have the right answer.

"Andre," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'

"She said ..." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."

"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young lady, are you bidding or not?"

"What?" I asked.

He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.

"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."

"Orientation film?" I asked.

"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Andre. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know-" he pointed to the horn in the shoe box- "that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods- the forces you call the Greek gods- are very much alive."

I stared at the others around the table.

Mr. D started yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.

"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"

"Eh? Oh, all right."

Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.

I reflected all the strange things that had happened to me in my entire life.

"Gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."

I stayed silent. Part of me wanted to burst out laughing and the other part believe him. I'm not sure which was the sane part or the insane.

"Like the gods we discussed in Latin class."

"But aren't they stories," I said. "They're what people believed before there was science."

"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Alejandrine Jackson. What will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now? Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals- they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come _so-o-o _far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this girl and tell me."

I glared at him, "You don't know a _thing _about me."

I spat those words like venom. I'm sick of people judging me before they even know anything about me, teachers always did. They would take one look at my record and 'disabilities' and decide, 'why bother.' That's why I spent so much time with my nose in a book. If no one would teach me, I'd have to teach myself. It's how I got through school with Bs.

"Andre," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that _immortal _means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"

"Whether people believed in you or not," I said.

"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Alejandrine Jackson, that someday people would call _you _a myth, just created to explain how little girls can get over losing their mothers?"

He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him and calmly said, "I wouldn't like it. Do gods really exist?"

"Oh, you'd better believe they exist," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."

Grover said, "P-please, sir. She's just lost his mother. She's in shock."

"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with girls who don't even believe."

He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.

I tilted my head and watched it, but Chiron hardly looked up.

"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."

Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.

"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"

More thunder.

Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.

Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."

"A wood nymph," I repeated smirking.

"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time- well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away- the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."

Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.

I raised an eyebrow with a small smile, "Whose your father?"

_"Di immortales,_Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this girl the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."

Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.

"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."

Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"

"Y-yes, Mr. D."

"Then, well, duh! Andre Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"

"Of course not, it just you don't look like one." Then added quieter, "I really hope the others are more impressive."

He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life. Sounds like fun.

"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.

"Yes."

He glared harder he looked like he was about to fallow through with his threat. Chiron move slightly towards me and Grover started trembling, "Besides," I continued. "Your supposed to 'Be a better influence work with youths rather than tearing them down. I wouldn't want your punishment extend just cuz' little old me."

The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game with a scowl. "I believe I win."

"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."

I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by him.

He got up, and Grover rose, too.

"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, _again ,_about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."

Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."

Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Andre Jackson. And mind your manners."

I gave him a little finger wave and said in a 'innocent little girl' voice, "Bye-bye."

He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.

"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.

Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus. Andre, you need to be cautious, don't start disrespecting the gods."

"Sorry, I zoned out after Andre."

Chiron gave me a stern look. So, I changed the subject, "Mount Olympus, is a palace really there?"

"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Andre, just as the gods do."

"The Greek gods are in america?"

"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."

"The west?"

"Come now, Andre. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know- or as I hope you know, since you passed my course- the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps- Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on- but the same forces, the same gods."

Doesn't mean that mean that there are roman gods to? Like the same person but a different name? Like how I go by different nicknames, depending on the person.

"They didn't fade?"

"Fade? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Andre, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not- and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either- America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."

It was all too much, especially the fact that _I _seemed to be included in Chiron's _we, _as if I were part of some club.

"Where exactly do I fit in all this? Who am I?"

Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down. But then again in the myths... or reality? The point is isn't he supposed to be a centaur.

"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."

And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.

I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.

"What a relief," he said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Andre Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."

I saluted him, "Aye-Aye, Horsey-man."

He gave me a scolding look.

"Fine, No Horsey-Man."


	7. Chapter 6

**I won't have internet access for a week. Have a nice spring break! Thanks for the reviews! Enjoy!**

* * *

Chiron led me through camp and I got a nice tour, though I was careful not to walk behind him. I'm sorry, I did not trust Chiron's back end the way I trusted his front.

We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn I was carrying. Another said, "That's _her_."

Most of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.

I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized—four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.

"What's up there?" I asked Chiron.

He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic."

"Somebody lives there?"

"No," he said with finality. "Not a single _living_ thing."

I was also sure something had moved that curtain, "What about dead?"

"Come along, Andre," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."

We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.

Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."

He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.

I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music.

I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.

"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Chiron. Swallowing my pride, "I mean ... he was a good protector. Really."

Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Andre. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing her safely to Half-Blood Hill."

"I'm here, Aren't I? He did his job."

"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate ... ah ... fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you... _threw_ him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."

I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover's fault. It was mine. "He'll get a second chance, won't he?"

Chiron winced. "I'm afraid that _was _Grover's second chance, Andre. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age..."

"How old is he?"

"Oh, twenty-eight."

Raising an eyebrow I asked, "And he's in sixth grade?"

"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Andre. Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."

"That must suck."

"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career..."

"What happened...to the other demigod?"

Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"

But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother's fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word _death._The beginnings of an idea—a tiny, hopeful fire—started forming in my mind.

"Chiron," I said. "Is the Underworld is real, too?"

Chiron's expression darkened.

"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words care fully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now ... until we know more ... I would urge you to put that out of your mind."

"'Until we know more'?"

"Come, Andre. Let's see the woods."

As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine just imagine all they've seen, all they've lived through.

Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."

"Stocked? Armed?" I asked.

"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"

"My own—?"

"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size two will do. I'll visit the armory later."

"I do have my own sword, unless you want it back?" Holding up my wrist.

He gave me a small smile, "You may keep that."

The tour continued, we saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much), the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.

"Sword and spear fights?" I asked.

"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."

Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.

"What happens when it rains?" I asked.

Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little crazy,"We still have to eat, don't we?"

I decided to drop the subject.

Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.

Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at.

They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops.

In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.

The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them.

Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.

"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.

"Correct," Chiron said.

"Their cabins look empty."

"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."

Okay. So each cabin had a different god.

Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?

I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.

It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. I peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"

Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along, Andre."

Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers. Number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists. It looked stupid.

The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer.

I returned her sneer with a blank look. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.

I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," I observed.

"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk,

I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."

"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really the Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Andre, I am."

"But, shouldn't you be dead or not?"

Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about _should _be. The truth is, I _can't _be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish ... and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."

I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. Ha! Me! A Teacher!

"Doesn't it ever get boring?"

"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."

Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.

"Oh, look," he said. "Justin is waiting for us."

The blond boy I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.

When we reached him, he looked me over critically. He was juging me! Before he even knew a thing about me! Oh, well, I was used to it by now.

I tried to see what he was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English, but it in Greek. There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.

"Justin," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Andre from here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."

Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on_old._

The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. I believe it's called a caduceus.

Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center. It was depressing.

Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.

"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Andre. I'll see you at dinner."

He galloped away toward the archery range.

I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.

"Well?" Justin prompted, before turning away from me. "Go on."

After his back was turned I made a face at him. I'm sorry did I say _face_, I might _faces _and I may have flashed him a hand sign

There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.

Justin announced, "Andre Jackson, meet cabin eleven."

"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.

I didn't know what to say, but Justin said, "Undetermined."

Everybody groaned.

A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward.

"Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Andre. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."

The guy was about nineteen. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.

He was handsome. Now to the people out there going _aw_, it was just a observation. Not 'oh, he's cute, let's get it on!'

"This is Luke," Justin said, in response Luke ruffled his hair. It took an idiot to not piece together their relationship, I mean they act like brothers. "He's your counselor, for now."

"For now?" I asked.

"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."

I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given me. I sat my backpack in the small space, then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves. I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.

I raised an eyebrow at them daring them to challenge me. _If you steal any of my stuff, I'll skin you alive._

"How long will I be here?" I asked.

"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."

"How long will that take?"

The campers all laughed.

"Come on," Justin told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."

"I've already seen it."

"Come on." He grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.

When we were a few feet away, Justin said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."

"I'm sorry I don't live up to your _standards._"

He rolled her eyes and mumbled under his breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."

"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I kill the bull—"

"Don't talk like that!" Justin told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"

"To lose their mortal parent? To DIE? Oh, they must be lining up."

He sent me a scowl, "To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"

I shook my head, taking a deep breath to try to shake my anger at this boy. Then I realized something, there was only one Minotaur and he died in... a long time ago, "Do monsters die?"

"Monsters don't die, Andre. They can be killed. But they don't die."

"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."

"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them arche types. Eventually, they re-form."

I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword—"

"The Fur ... I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."

"Cool. How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"

"You talk in your sleep."

"She was a Fury, a Torcher of Hades' Relem, Right?"

Justin glanced nervously at the ground, as if he expected it to open up and swallow him. "You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."

"Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."

I pointed to the first few cabins, and Justin turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Andre. It depends on who your parents are. Or ... your parent."

He stared at me, waiting for me to get it.

"I don't know my dad."

"Well, you wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."

"You don't know anything about me."

"No?" He raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them. Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."

I tried to swallow my embarrassment. "It's a demigod abilities?"

"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD—you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battle field reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Andre, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."

"What healed me?"

"The ambrosia and nectar."

"Ambrosia and nectar."

"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half-blood."

I was reeling with so many more questions I didn't know where to start.

Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"

I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin

was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.

"Clarisse," Justin sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"

"Sure, Prince Charming," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."

_''Erre es korakas!"_ Justin said, which I somehow under stood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded.

"You don't stand a chance."

"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat.

She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"

"Andre Jackson," Justin said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."

I blinked. "The war god?"

Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"

"Just it explains the smell."

Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Angel Face."

"You need to work on your insults."

"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."

"Clarisse—" Justin tried to say.

"Stay out of it, wise boy."

Justin looked pained, but he did stay out of it, and I didn't really want his help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep.

I handed Justin my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.

I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. So, went with her.

She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking—as much as I _could _think with Clarisse ripping my hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.

Clarisse's friends were all laughing, not noticing my smirk.

"Like she's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."

Her friends snickered.

Justin stood in the corner, watching through the open door.

Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets.

I started chucking.

"Wha'cha laughting at punk!"

"You!"

Before she had time to respond I moved out of her grip and forced her head into the toilet. Her friends pulled me back and Clarisse emerged from the wonders of the john.

"You little punk!"

They forced me back toward the toilet, this her friends where holding me down and she was trying to force my head in it. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.

Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach.

I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.

I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt.

The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.

She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her.

But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.

As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.

The entire bathroom was flooded and drained out of through the door. Justin hadn't been spared.

He was dripping wet, but He hadn't been pushed to the floor. He was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.

I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.

I stood up, my legs shaky.

Justin said, "How did you ..."

"I don't know."

We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage.

She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new girl. You are totally dead."

I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."

Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.

Justin stared at me. I couldn't tell whether he was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing him.

"What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking," he said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."


	8. Chapter 7

**Remember spanish is underlined. **

**Also Andre is now Andrea. **

**Sorry for the late update!**

**Thanks for the Reviews!**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Word of the bathroom incident spread like a wild-fire. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Justin, who was still pretty much dripping wet.

Heh! Heh! I wonder if got toilet or shower water. I have nothing against him, but I was hoping toilet.

He showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids were forging their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of ... Pan?), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.

Overall, I loved the camp. It made the care-free childish person I was before I got into grades and it almost made me forget about... mom. Lost in my thoughts I tripped over a rock and my face meet the ground. I sighed, "Hello, floor."

I looked up to see Justin the meanie butt wasn't stopping for me, so I quickly got up and ran after him.

Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.

"I've got training to do," Justin said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."

"Justin, I'm sorry about the toilets."

I crossed my fingers behind my back, _toilet water toilet water toilet water toilet water toilet water __toilet water toilet water toilet water toilet water toilet water_ _toilet water toilet water toilet water toilet water toilet water_ _toilet water toilet water toilet water toilet water toilet water_ _toilet water toilet water toilet water toilet water toilet water_.

"Whatever."

"Look I already apologized, which I never do, what do you _want_ me to do? Beg for forgiveness. Besides it wasn't my fault."

He looked at me skeptically, and confirmed my suspicions, it _was _my fault. I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. All shall tremble in fear for the one in which the toilet respond to, the Toilet Whisperer. Fore she has become one with the pluming.

"You need to talk to the Oracle," Justin said.

"Huh?"

"The Oracle."

"Oh, _Thanks! _Now everything makes sence, why the sky is green and the grass is blue and why I CAN'T A STRAIGHT ANSWER OUT OF YOU!"

He just ignored me, "I'll ask Chiron."

I rolled my eyes and looked at the lake, _that's not a straight answer. Jeez, you at least tell me 'Yes, we have an Oracle and she spits out chipmunks, while doing the shuffle.' That would at least have been a straight answer._

I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below.

They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.

I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.

"Don't encourage them," Justin warned.

"I'm just waving."

"Naiads are terrible flirts."

"They even flirt with girls? Well, I guess I don't blame them, I'd flirt with me."

I chucked at the image I just form of myself doing just that, before looking at a stiff Justin. He didn't even crack a smile, come to think of it he did nothing, but stare at me as if I was below him.

"Wow, you're a tough nut to crack, for a mentally disturbed kid."

"I'm not a mentally disturbed kid. None of us are."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," I said patting his shoulder.

"I am _not human,-"_

"That, I believe."

"- I mean we're not totally human, we're half."

"Half-human and Half-god, right?"

Justin nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Andrea. He's one of the Olympians."

"That's ... crazy." Or at least it would've been a week ago.

"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"

"No. What's life without chasing a couple of off-limit nymphs," I said this with a small smirk recalling why Mr.D was here. "But if all the kids here are half-gods—"

"Demigods," Justin said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."

"Then who's your dad and mom?"

His hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject.

"My dad is a professor at West Point," he said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American history."

"I like history. Who's your mom, then?"

"Cabin six."

"Oh, Justin Chase son of Cabin Six. Honestly, I didn't know inanimate objects could even get pregnant."

Justin straightened. "I _meant _Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."

Okay, I thought. Why not?

"Well almighty Wise one, do you know who my dad is?"

"Undetermined," Justin said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows."

"Not so wise then, " I enjoyed the color of red he was turning. "But my mother. She knew."

"Maybe not, Andrea. Gods don't always reveal their identities."

"My dad must have, because she knew."

Justin gave me a cautious look. "Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his daughter. Sometimes it happens."

"And sometimes it doesn't?"

Justin ran his hand through his hair. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always ... Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Andrea. They ignore us."

"They must care a little bit."

"Yeah, maybe."

I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them.

But gods should behave better.

"So I'm stuck here," I said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"

"It depends," Justin said. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force. The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble—about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."

"Monsters can't get in here?"

Justin shook his head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."

"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"

"Practice fights. Practical jokes."

"Practical jokes." I repeated.

"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm."

"Are you a year-rounder?"

Justin nodded. From under the collar of his T-shirt he pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke's, except Justin also had a big gold ring strung on it, like a college ring.

"I've been here since I was seven," he said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college."

"Why did you come so young?"

He twisted the ring on her necklace. "None of your business."

I glared at him for snapping at me, I hated when people snapped, "So ... I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"

"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless ..."

"Unless?"

"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time …"

His voice trailed off. I could tell from his tone that the last time hadn't gone well.

"Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me..."

"Ambrosia."

"Ambrosia. You asked me something about the summer solstice."

Justin's shoulders tensed. "So you _do _know something?"

"Yes, I just found out about this...world and suddenly know everything that's going on in it," I said sarcastically.

He visibly slumped disappointed.

"But," I regained his attention. "Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did that mean?"

He clenched his fists.

"I wish I knew. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so _normal_."

"You've been to Olympus?"

"Some of us year-rounders—Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others—we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."

"What was it like?"

"Unlike anything you possibly imagine."

"But... how did you get there?"

"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor."

He looked at me like he was sure I must know this already, "You _are _a New Yorker, right?"

"Yeah."

As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to question the Wise One's logic. After all he'd been there, I hadn't.

"Right after we visited," Justin continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping ... I mean— Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares. And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon. But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something."

I gave him a look.

"I've got to get a quest," Justin muttered to himself. "I'm _not _too young. If they would just tell me the problem …"

I nudged him, "Justie me be hungie."

I saw his lips twitch upward and he told me to go on, he'd catch me later.

I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.

Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers.

Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor, marked with my backpack and plopped down with my minotaur horn. I shuffled through my bags contents and was happy to say nothing was stolen. Taking out my sketch pad and pencil I started drawing the camp.

The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.

"Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."

I said, "Thanks."

"No prob." Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"

"Does it get any easier," I laughed

"No," he said. The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.

"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.

He pulled a switch blade out of his back pocket and scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."

"The wing-footed messenger guy."

"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."

_That's not a bad thing._

"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.

"Once."

He left it at that, I was starting to get really annoyed and turned back to my drawing, ignoring him.

Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Andrea. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."

Those words were thoughtful and slightly comforting. They went in one ear and out the other, because I was ignoring him.

But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.

So I forgave him and decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Justin ... twice, he said I might be 'the one.' He said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"

Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."

"What do you mean?"

His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Justin's been dying to get out into the world. He pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew his fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell him the whole thing, but he said Justin wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. He had to wait until...somebody special came to the camp."

"Me?"

"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Justin wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen he's been waiting for. Now, come on, it's dinnertime."

The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.

Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"

The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.

We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods— and when I say out of the woods, I mean _straight _out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.

In all, there were maybe a hundred campers (the gods have been around), a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.

At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.

I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D.

Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.

Justin sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey-blond hair.

Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.

And the cute little girl, Summer was sitting at ... Apollo's table. I saw her glance up at me and gave her a small finger wave.

Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"

Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"

Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want—nonalcoholic, of course."

I said, "Cherry Coke."

The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.

Then I had an idea. "_Blue _Cherry Coke."

The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.

I took a cautious sip. Perfect.

I drank a toast to my 's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld.

"Here you go, Andrea," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.

I loaded my plate and I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion.

I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.

"Come on," Luke told me.

As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest straw berry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.

Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."

"You're kidding."

His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.

Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."

I was next.

I wished I knew what god's name to say.

Finally, I made a silent plea. _Whoever you are, tell me. Please._I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.

I thought again and threw a roll into the fire and said, "Hermes." _Have you ever thought of expanding your cabin?_

When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag.

It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.

When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.

Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."

A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.

"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Annie Johnson."

Chiron murmured something.

"Er, Andrea Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."

Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a sing-along.

We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.

Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag, using my bag as a pillow.

My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.

When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.

That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.

I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.


	9. Chapter 8

**Warning: Language. **

******Song lyrics are from the Cheetah Girls- A la nanita nana.**

**Thanks for all the reviews and I plan to make a story some time after I'm done or in the middle of the books.**

**Sorry these notes aren't longer and that I don't directly respond to Ya'lls Reviews, if you want me to... Review!**

**Enjoy! Hope You like this chapter, if not, I'm sorry.**

* * *

The next few days I settled into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don't count the fact that I was getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, and a centaur. Each morning I took Ancient Greek from Justin, and we talked about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which I was still getting used to.

I discovered Justin was right about my dyslexia: Ancient Greek wasn't that hard for me to read. And ,after the _many_ headaches and _many _hours I spent trying to read english, Ancient Greek was easy. After a couple of mornings, I could stumble through all of Homer with almost no headache.

_Almost_. Which meant there was still room for improvement, who knows maybe by the end of the summer I could speak Ancient Greek and Greek fluently. Also, the lessons acted as a wake up call, for the logical part of me. But the camp had a way of bring out the silly child I've locked up a long time ago.

The rest of the day, I'd rotate through outdoor activities, looking for something I was good at.

Chiron tried to teach me archery, but we found out pretty quick I wasn't any good with a bow and arrow. He didn't complain, even when he had to de-snag a stray arrow out of his tail. Which I had recorded in my sketchbook, because even though he didn't complain, his face was really funny.

Foot racing? No good either. The wood-nymph instructors left me in the dust. They told me not to worry about it. They'd had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a tree. So, after that, when I went to that activity I climbed trees.

And wrestling? I've always been able to hold up on my side of a fight. Yet every time I got on the mat, Clarisse would have my face in the mat within the minute.

"There's more where that came from, punk," she'd mumble in my ear. But that didn't scare me off. I wanted to get better, that's what Camp Half-Blood was about anyway.

Not pig-faced girls on steroids, who can't handle a little embarrassment that was clearly needed.

Despite my determination, the only thing I really excelled at was canoeing, and that wasn't the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur. I knew the senior campers and counselors were watching me, trying to decide who my dad was, but they weren't having an easy time of it.

GOOD LUCK!

I wasn't as strong as the Ares kids, or as good at archery as the Apollo kids. I didn't have Hephaestus's skill with metalwork or-gods forbid- Dionysus's way with vine plants. Luke told me I might be a child of Hermes, a kind of jack-of-all-trades, master of none.

Let me list the reason wrong with that;

1.I didn't have the family features. Not even close.

2. I wasn't kleptomaniac.

was just trying to make me feel better. He really didn't know what to make of me either.

To tell the truth I enjoyed the puzzle. I relived my background of strange, well just strangeness. Dad lost at sea, ladies in water, strangle snake (suggests big three, since Heracles did the same thing when he was a baby), the cyclops, soaking Nancy in the fountain, and many other things.

Despite all that, as I've said before, I liked camp. I got used to the morning fog over the beach, the smell of hot strawberry fields in the afternoon, even the weird noises of monsters in the woods at night. I would eat dinner with cabin eleven, scrape part of my meal into the fire (giving it to different random gods everyday along with my unknown dad), and try to feel some connection to my real dad. Nothing came. Just that warm feeling I'd always had, like the memory of his smile.

I tried not to think too much about my mom, but I kept wondering: if gods and monsters were real, if all this magical stuff was possible, surely there was some way to save her, to bring her back...

I started to understand Luke's bitterness and how he seemed to resent his father, Hermes. I know the gods had important things to do. But couldn't they call once in a while, or thunder, or something? Dionysus could make Diet Coke appear out of thin air. Why couldn't my dad, whoever he was, make a phone appear?

I didn't dwell too much on that type of bitterness toward the gods, because I felt, even though they ignore us, there's a good reason behind it. Which I don't know, because no one will tell me anything, except on the rare occasion Justin. Who _still _refuses to give me a straight answer.

Thursday afternoon, three days after I'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I had my first sword-fighting lesson. Every-body from cabin eleven gathered in the big circular arena, where Luke would be our instructor.

We started with basic stabbing and slashing, using some straw-stuffed dummies in Greek armor. I thought I did okay. At least, I understood what I was supposed to do and my reflexes were good. But most of the time we were supposed to be using the dummies I was observing the other campers.

I saw the same moves being used multiple times, but differently. One person would cut the deep, light, deep or light, light, and very deep or very deep, deep, then very light. The point was that each swing although the same to another person in the ring was conducted differently and had a different result. It reminded me of hand writing, everyone's was noticeably different.

I should've been practicing with my sword, but I just stuck to watching the others and figuring out what to do and how to hit my opponent in different situations. Like if I only wanted to scratch my opponent, I would keep my muscles lose. I figured out ways to land different blows on my opponent, but I was having trouble piecing them together.

We moved on to dueling in pairs. Luke announced he would be my partner, since this was my first time.

"Good luck," Travis Stoll, a son of Hermes, told me. "Luke's the best swordsman in the last three hundred years."

"I seriously doubt that," I said picking up my unnamed sword (nothing I thought of seemed right).

The camper snorted.

Luke showed me thrusts and parries and shield blocks the hard way. I wasn't focused and my reflexes (suddenly) were off, it was like my ADHD decided to take a break and with every swipe, I got a little more battered and bruised.

"Keep your guard up, Andrea," he'd say, then whap me in the ribs with the flat of his blade.

"No, not that far up!"

Whap!

"Lunge!"

Whap!

"Now, back!"

Whap!

By the time he called a break, I was soaked in sweat. Everybody swarmed the drinks cooler. Luke poured ice water on his head, which looked like such a good idea, I did the same.

Instantly, I felt better. Strength surged back into my arms. My mind focused on one thing, beating Luke.

"Okay, everybody circle up!" Luke ordered. "If Andrea doesn't mind, I want to give you a little demo."

I smiled and in a sweet voice said, "Of course not."

_Beware of my sweet voice, nothing good happens when you hear it._

The Hermes guys gathered around. They were suppressing smiles. I figured they'd been in my shoes before and couldn't wait to see how Luke used me for a punching bag.

He told everybody he was going to demonstrate a disarming technique: how to twist the enemy's blade with the flat of your own sword so that he had no choice but to drop his weapon.

"This is difficult," he stressed. "I've had it used against me. No laughing at Andrea, now. Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique. "

He demonstrated the move on me in slow motion. Sure enough, the sword clattered out of my hand.

"Now in real time," he said, after I'd retrieved my weapon. "We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Percy?"

I nodded, replaying what to do in my mind, and Luke came after me.

My senses opened up. I finally put the attacks together and I had a plan.

I saw his attacks coming. I countered. I stepped forward and tried a thrust of my own. Luke deflected it easily, but I saw a change in his face. His eyes narrowed, and he started to press me with more force. I was meeting every one of Luke's blows and even managed to get in a few hits at him myself.

I felt him getting closer and saw him try the disarming maneuver a couple of times, but I succeeded first. I twisted Luke's sword around just like he had done to me and sent his sword flying to the ground.

Clang.

Luke's sword rattled against the stones. The tip of my blade was an inch from his undefended chest. The other campers were silent. I smirked and lowered my sword, happy I had won against the 'Greatest swordsman in three hundred years'.

For a moment, Luke was too stunned to speak.

"Sorry," I offered.

"Sorry?" His scarred face broke into a grin. "By the gods, Andrea, why are you sorry? Show me that again!"

Even though he wore a grin that spread from one end of his face to the other, there was something different in his eyes. He wanted to show me who was better. He wanted to defend his tittle.

It was great that I beat him the first time, but with the rush of energy I once felt was gone and my arms felt a little heavier, I didn't think I would be able to again. So, I didn't want to fight again, but he insisted. I won't go down with out a fight. Raising my sword, I tried to regain my previous state of mind with no avail.

He charged me.

We fought and fought and fought, Luke with strong, sure blows and me with confident, lesser ones. After five minutes, Luke had his sword to my heart. I accepted my defeat as the logical part of my brian caught up with me saying, _You did you knowingly get into a sword fight with far more experience than you? Why did you think you'd win?_

I walked over to a familiar bracelet a few feet behind Luke and slipped it on my wrist. I kept my attention on the gold sword in the middle not wanting to look up at the faces of my peers.

After a long pause, somebody in the audience said, "Beginner's luck?"

I glanced up as Luke wiped the sweat off his brow. He appraised at me with an entirely new interest. "Maybe."

Friday afternoon, I was sitting with Grover at the lake, resting from a near-death experience on the climbing wall.

Grover had scampered to the top like a mountain goat, but the lava had almost gotten me. My shirt had smoking holes in it. The hairs had been singed off my forearms. We sat on the pier, watching the naiads do underwater basket-weaving, until I got up the nerve to ask Grover how his conversation had gone with Mr. D.

His face turned a sickly shade of yellow.

"Fine," he said. "Just great."

"So your career's still on track?"

He glanced at me nervously. "Chiron t-told you I want a searcher's license?"

"He just said you had big plans, you know ... And that you needed credit for completing a keeper's assignment. So did you get it?"

Grover looked down at the naiads.

"Mr. D suspended judgment. He said I hadn't failed or succeeded with you yet, so our fates were still tied together. If you got a quest and I went along to protect you, and we both came back alive, then maybe he'd consider the job complete."

I gave him a smile. "Well, that's not so bad, right?"

"Blaa-ha-ha! He might as well have transferred me to stable-cleaning duty. The chances of you getting a quest... And even if you did, why would you want me along?"

"Because your my friend and the only one a really know in this place."

_Which was true. I had met a few demigods, but I wouldn't consider them my friends... Yet._

Grover stared glumly into the water. "Basket-weaving ... Must be nice to have a useful skill."

I tried to reassure him that he had lots of talents, but that just made him look more miserable. We talked about canoeing and swordplay for a while, then debated the pros and cons of the different gods.

Finally, I asked him about the four empty cabins. He'd give me a real answer.

"Number eight, the silver one, belongs to Artemis," he said. "She vowed to be a maiden forever. So of course, no kids. The cabin is, you know, honorary. If she didn't have one, she'd be mad."

"Yeah, okay. But the other three, the ones at the end. Are those the Big Three?"

Grover tensed. We were getting close to a touchy subject. "No. One of them, number two, is Hera's," he said. "That's another honorary thing. She's the goddess of marriage, so of course she wouldn't go around having affairs with mortals."

"Yeah, That's her husband's job."

Thunder rumbled.

"Andrea," Grover warned.

"Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Hey, when we say the Big Three, we mean the three powerful brothers, the sons of Kronos. Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Right?"

"Right. You know. After the great battle with the Titans, they took over the world from their dad and drew lots to decide who got what."

"Zeus got the sky," I remembered. "Poseidon the sea, Hades the Underworld."

"Uh-huh."

"But Hades doesn't have a cabin here."

"No. He doesn't have a throne on Olympus, either. He sort of does his own thing down in the Underworld. If he did have a cabin here ..." Grover shuddered. "Well, it wouldn't be pleasant. Let's leave it at that."

"But Zeus and Poseidon-they both had a lot of kids in the myths/past. Why are their cabins empty?"

Grover shifted his hooves uncomfortably. "About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn't sire any more heroes. Their children were just too powerful. They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage. World War II, you know, that was basically a fight between the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of Hades on the other. The winning side, Zeus and Poseidon, made Hades swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the River Styx."

Thunder boomed.

I said, "That's the most serious oath you can make."

Grover nodded.

"And the brothers kept their word-no kids?"

Grover's face darkened. "Seventeen years ago, Zeus fell off the wagon. There was this TV starlet with a big fluffy eighties hairdo-he just couldn't help himself. When their child was born, a little girl named Thalia... Well, the River Styx is serious about promises. Zeus himself got off easy because he's immortal, but he brought a terrible fate on his daughter."

"So, if they did 'fall off the wagon', since they were immortal, they would bring horrible ends or fates to their kids."

Grover gave me a nod.

"That's unfair! They can't help the fact that they were born."

Grover hesitated. "Andrea, children of the Big Three have powers greater than other half-bloods. They have a strong aura, a scent that attracts monsters. When Hades found out about the girl, he wasn't too happy about Zeus breaking his oath. Hades let the worst monsters out of Tartarus to torment Thalia. A satyr was assigned to be her keeper when she was twelve, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to escort her here with a couple of other half-bloods she'd befriended. They almost made it. They got all the way to the top of that hill."

He pointed across the valley, to the pine tree where I'd fought the minotaur.

"All three Kindly Ones were after them, along with a horde of hellhounds. They were about to be overrun when Thalia told her satyr to take the other two half-bloods to safety while she held off the monsters. She was wounded and tired, and she didn't want to live like a hunted animal. The satyr didn't want to leave her, but he couldn't change her mind, and he had to protect the others. So Thalia made her final stand alone, at the top of that hill. As she died, Zeus took pity on her. He turned her into that pine tree. Her spirit still helps protect the borders of the valley. That's why the hill is called Half-Blood Hill."

I stared at the pine in the distance, this story bought a new meaning to, 'So close. Yet, so far away'.

The story made me feel hollow, and guilty too. A girl my age had sacrificed herself to save her friends. She had faced a whole army of monsters. Next to that, my victory over the Minotaur didn't seem like anything at all. Even though she is curently a tree, I held her in the highest of respect and it took a lot to get my respect, Grover still doesn't have it completely.

All this made me wonder, if I'd acted differently, could I have saved my mother?

"Grover," I said, "have heroes really gone on quests to the Underworld?"

"Sometimes," he said. "Orpheus. Hercules. Houdini."

Names I was familiar with, "And have they ever returned somebody from the dead?"

"No. Never. Orpheus came close... Andrea, you're not seriously thinking-"

"No," I lied. "I was just wondering. All this talk of the underworld made me think of that, no biggie. So ... A satyr is always assigned to guard a demigod?"

Grover studied me warily. I hadn't persuaded him that I'd really dropped the Underworld idea. "Not always. We go undercover to a lot of schools. We try to sniff out the half-bloods who have the makings of great heroes. If we find one with a very strong aura, like a child of the Big Three, we alert Chiron. He tries to keep an eye on them, since they could cause really huge problems."

"And you found me. Chiron said you thought I might be something special."

Grover looked as if I'd just led him into a trap. "I didn't... Oh, listen, don't think like that. If you were-you know-you'd never ever be allowed a quest, and I'd never get my license. You're probably a child of Hermes. Or maybe even one of the minor gods, like Nemesis, the god of revenge. Don't worry, okay?"

"Grover?"

"Yes?"

"Your such a pessimist."

"Grover?"

"What?!" He shouted in an angry voice, but with a smile on his face.

"Nemesis is the _goddess _of revenge, not god."

He nudged me playfully and I returned it, but a _little_ harder, causing him to fall face first into the ground.

I didn't worry that much about getting quest, because how bad could it be? Besides, I got the idea he was reassuring himself more than me. I went over my conversation with Grover in my mind. If my theory about my dad was right... my life is guaranteed to be _very_ exciting. That night after dinner could be used as an example...

At last, it was time for capture the flag.

When the plates were cleared away, the conch horn sounded and we all stood at our tables.

Campers yelled and cheered as Justin and two of his siblings ran into the pavilion carrying a silk banner. It was about ten feet long, glistening gray, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree. From the opposite side of the pavilion, Clarisse and her buddies ran in with another banner, of identical size, but gaudy red, painted with a bloody spear and a boar's head.

I liked Cabin Six's better.

The teams were announced. Athena had made an alliance with Apollo and Hermes, the two biggest cabins. Apparently, privileges had been traded-shower times, chore schedules, the best slots for activities-in order to win support.

Ares had allied themselves with everybody else: Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. From what I'd seen, Dionysus's kids were actually good athletes, but there were only two of them and I understand why. Demeter's kids had the edge with nature skills and outdoor stuff but they weren't very aggressive. Aphrodite's sons and daughters I wasn't too worried about. They mostly sat out every activity and checked their reflections in the lake and did their hair and gossiped. Hephaestus's kids weren't pretty (yet, they're nice), and there were only four of them, but they were big and burly from working in the metal shop all day. They might be a problem.

That, of course, left Ares's cabin: a dozen of the biggest, ugliest, meanest kids on Long Island, or anywhere else on the planet.

Chiron hammered his hoof on the marble.

"Heroes!" he announced. "You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"

He spread his hands, and the tables were suddenly covered with equipment: helmets, bronze swords, spears, oxhide shields coated in metal.

I tossed the weapons and shield around, before finding nothing of my liking and backing away.

Luke looked at me as if I were crazy. "Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in cabin five you better wear some armor. Here-Chiron thought these would fit. You'll be on border patrol."

My shield was the size of an NBA backboard, with a big caduceus in the middle. It weighed about a million pounds. I could have snowboarded on it fine, but I hoped nobody seriously expected me to run fast. My helmet, like all the helmets on Athena's side, had a blue horsehair plume on top. Ares and their allies had red plumes. Overall, we all looked pretty stupid.

Justin yelled, "Blue team, forward!"

We cheered and shook our swords and followed him down the path to the south woods. The red team yelled taunts at us as they headed off toward the north.

I managed to catch up with Justin without tripping over my equipment. "Hey."

He kept marching. _Well, then._

"So what's the plan?" I asked.

"Just watch Clarisse's spear," He said. "You don't want that thing touching you. Otherwise, don't worry. We'll take the banner from Ares. Has Luke given you your job?"

"Border patrol, whatever that means."

He had the same sly look in his eye that Luke had on his face when he told me my job, that they knew someting I didn't. "It's easy. Stand by the creek, keep the reds away. Leave the rest to me. Athena always has a plan."

He pushed ahead, leaving me in the dust.

I rolled my eyes, "I love you, too."

It was a warm, sticky night. The woods were dark, with fireflies popping in and out of view. Justin stationed me next to a little creek that gurgled over some rocks, then he and the rest of the team scattered into the trees. Standing there alone, with my big blue-feathered helmet and my huge shield, I felt like an idiot. There was no way anybody would actually attack me. I was far away from any of the action.

Far away, the conch horn blew. I started climbing a tree, before long I was 20 feet in the air with my monstrosity of a shield and fashionable helmet hanging at bottom branch, far below me.

I heard whoops and yells in the woods, the clanking of metal, kids fighting. A blue-plumed ally from Apollo raced under me like a deer, leaped through the creek, and disappeared into enemy territory.

I just lounged on a branch, swinging my leg back and forth, softly singing.

_Fuentecita que corre clara y sonora  
Ruisenor que en la selva  
Cantando y llora_

Then I heard a sound that sent a chill up my spine, a low canine growl, somewhere close by. I shot up and gazed below; I had the feeling something was stalking me. Then the growling stopped. I felt the presence retreating.

On the other side of the creek, the underbrush exploded. Five Ares warriors came yelling and screaming out of the dark. They charged across the stream to where my helmet and shield was.

"Where's the punk!" Clarisse screamed. Her ugly pig eyes glared through the slits of her helmet. She brandished a five-foot-long spear, its barbed metal tip flickering with red light. Her siblings had only the standard-issue bronze swords-not that that made me feel any better.

_Hmm...time to have a little fun__._

They looked everywhere around the creek, except the trees. I slowly and quietly made my way down the branches, but I made sure there was still enough leaf cover, so they couldn't see me.

They turned to leave, they were going to leave, that is if I didn't knock out a guy. I jumped on to him and using my wight I manipulated his balance, making him slam into my tree. I stood up and looked at the ugly son of Ares, truth was... I didn't mean to do that and kind of wished I hadn't because the rest charged. And boy, were they angry.

I sidestepped the first kid's swing, but these guys were not as stupid the Minotaur.

They surrounded me, and Clarisse thrust at me with her spear. I used my leg to deflected the point by kicking the point aside, but I felt a painful tingling all over my body. My hair stood on end. My leg went numb, and the air burned.

Electricity. Her stupid spear was electric.

I fell back. Another Ares guy slammed me in the chest with the butt of his sword and I hit the dirt. They could've kicked me into jelly, but they were too busy laughing.

"Give her a haircut," Clarisse said. "Grab her hair."

I managed to get to my feet, but my leg was still numb. I raised my sword, but Clarisse slammed it aside with her spear as sparks flew. Now both my arms felt numb.

"Oh, wow," Clarisse said. "I'm scared of her. Really scared."

"You should be," that made them stop laughing. "Because you don't know what I can do." I thought back to the toilets and added, "Well, at least not fully."

"I know that your weak and helpless, punk."

I brushed that comment off, "I'm guessing you don't want the flag."

"Yeah," one of her siblings said. "But see, we don't care about the flag. We care about a little girl who made our cabin look stupid."

I now saw why Justin and Luke had a sly look, I was bait.

_So, I have to keep their attention for a little while long. Fine, just fine. I won't mess with the all mighty wise one's plans._

"You do that without my help," I told them.

It probably wasn't the smartest thing to say, but it kept them occupied.

Two of them came at me. I backed up toward the creek, tried to raise my shield, but Clarisse was too fast. Her spear stuck me straight in the ribs. If I hadn't been wearing an armored breastplate, I would've been dead. As it was, the electric point just about shocked my teeth out of my mouth. One of her cabin mates slashed his sword across my arm, leaving a good-size cut.

Seeing my own blood made me dizzy-warm and cold at the same time.

"Does that make you feel good? Gaining up one someone and maiming them," I sneered.

He glared at me and pushed me into the creek. I landed with a splash. They all laughed, while I smirked. The water seemed to awakened my senses, again. When they sobered, I spoke up, "Now, is that anyway to treat a lady."

I gave a small laugh, recalling my conversation with Mr. D that seemed so long ago.

Clarisse and her cabinmates came into the creek to get me, but I stood to meet them. Planned my attacks and results. I swung the flat of my sword against the first guy's head and knocked his helmet clean off. I hit him so hard I could see his eyes vibrating as he crumpled into the water.

Ugly Number Two and Ugly Number Three came at me. I punched one in the right side of his jaw, dislocating it and used my sword to shear off the other guy's horsehair plume. Both of them backed up quick. Ugly Number Four didn't look really anxious to attack, in fact he ran away.

But Clarisse kept coming, the point of her spear crackling with energy. As soon as she thrust, I caught the shaft with a firm grip, gave my opponent a wicked smile noticing the look of horror on her face and I snapped it like a twig.

"Ah!" she screamed. "You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!"

She probably would've said worse, but punched her and sent her stumbling backward out of the creek.

Then I heard yelling, elated screams, and I saw Luke racing toward the boundary line with the red team's banner lifted high. He was flanked by a couple of Hermes guys covering his retreat, and a few Apollos behind them, fighting off the Hephaestus kids. Huh, I was expecting to see Justin.

The Ares folks got up, and Clarisse muttered a dazed curse.

"A trick!" she shouted. "It was a trick."

They staggered after Luke, but it was too late. Everybody converged on the creek as Luke ran across into friendly territory. Our side exploded into cheers. The red banner shimmered and turned to silver. The boar and spear were replaced with a huge caduceus, the symbol of cabin eleven. Everybody on the blue team picked up Luke and started carrying him around on their shoulders. Chiron cantered out from the woods and blew the conch horn.

The game was over.

We'd won.

I almost got killed.

In a place I thought was safe.

Whoot-Whoot!

I was about to join the celebration when Justin's voice, right next to me in the creek, said, "Not bad, hero."

I looked, but he wasn't there.

"Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?" he asked. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she'd just taken it off her head.

"In between breaks from my on-going musical boxing career and my travels back through time, in hope to find out who invented sliced bread," I paused. "Athena always has a plan, huh?"

Justin shrugged. "Yeah. I came as fast as I could. I was about to jump in, but ..." He shrugged. "You didn't need help."

"Ya know," I started staring straight into his eyes. "Not only did you give me to the Ares cabin like giving meat to dogs, but you also came up with such an _elaborate plan _that ended with the flag in luke's hands."

"And..."

"Look, I don't know what sort of brother relationship you two have, but right now it looks like he's the dominate one and your stuck kissing his ass." I looked to where the blue team was celebrating, "I'm not trying to ruin your 'brotherhood' or anything. But you shouldn't have given it to him, because if he takes it from you without a second thought, he doesn't deserve it. But that's just my opintion."

I walked past him, "How did you do that?"

"Sword cut," I said turning back toward him.

"Not anymore. Look at it."

The blood was gone. Where the huge cut had been, there was a long white scratch, and even that was fading. As I watched, it turned into a small scar, and disappeared. Justin was thinking hard. I could almost see the gears turning. He looked down at my feet, then at Clarisse's broken spear, and said, "Step out of the water, Andrea."

_So we're on the same page now._

I came out of the creek and immediately felt bone tired. My arms started to go numb again. My adrenaline rush left me. I almost fell over, but Justin caught me.

"Oh, Styx," he cursed. "This is not good. I didn't want ...I assumed it would be Zeus..."

I laughed, "_Sparky?"_

I was about to say more. Then something happened. I heard that canine growl again, but much closer than before. A howl ripped through the forest. The campers' cheering died instantly. Chiron shouted something in Ancient Greek, that I could proudly translate into english: "Stand ready! My bow!"

Justin drew his sword. There on the rocks just above us was a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers. It was looking straight at me.

Nobody moved except Justin, who yelled, "Andrea, run!"

He tried to step in front of me, but the hound was too fast. It leaped over him-an enormous shadow with teeth-and just as it hit me, as I stumbled backward and felt its razor-sharp claws ripping through my armor, there was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after the other. From the hounds neck sprouted a cluster of arrows. The monster fell dead at my feet.

By some miracle, I was still alive. I didn't want to look underneath the ruins of my shredded armor. My chest felt warm and wet, and I knew I was badly cut. More than badly cut. Another second, and the monster would've turned me into a hundred pounds of delicatessen meat. My second near death experience today, I was on a roll.

Chiron trotted up next to us, a bow in his hand, his face grim.

"_Di immortales_!" Justin said. "That's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don't ... They're not supposed to..."

"Someone summoned it," Chiron said. "Someone inside the camp."

Luke came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.

Clarisse yelled, "It's all Andrea's fault! Andrea summoned it!"

"Be quiet, child," Chiron told her.

While I was laughing crazily, before weakly saying, "Right, I summoned a hellhound so I could be attacked, that makes a _lot_ of sence. Well, at least we know you won't be giving any speeches about some mumbo-jumbo scientific theory anytime soon."

I watched the body of the hellhound melt into shadow, soaking into the ground until it disappeared.

"You're wounded," Justin told me. "Quick, Andea, get in the water."

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not," he said. "Chiron, watch this."

Justin gave me a push and I stepped back into the creek, the whole camp gathering around me. Instantly, I felt better. I could feel the cuts on my chest closing up. Some of the campers gasped.

"How cool is that?" I whispered looking down at my cuts. But they weren't watching my wounds heal. They were staring at something above my head.

"Andrea," Justin said, pointing. "Um..."

By the time I looked up, the sign was already fading, but I could still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming. A three-tipped spear: a trident.

"I love being right," I smiled.

"Your father," Justin murmured. "This is really not good."

"It is determined," Chiron announced.

All around me, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin, though they didn't look happy about it. Ha! Ha!

"Poseidon," said Chiron. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Alejandrine Jackson, Daughter of the Sea God."


	10. Chapter 10

**Spanish= Underlined**

**She doesn't sing! She hums while mentally singing the lyrics. **

**Also Guest (you know who you are) I haven't forgotten you idea and will use it. **

**Thanks to all that reviewed or even bothered to read this story.**

* * *

The next morning, I moved to cabin three. I didn't have to share with anybody. I had plenty of room for all my stuff: the Minotaur's horn, three sets of spare clothing, my sketch book, and a toiletry bag. I got to sit at my own dinner table, pick all my own activities, call "lights out" whenever I felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.

Usually I would love not having to listen to anyone, but after 10 minutes in the cabin it got really depressing.

I'd been separated out as if I had some rare disease. Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but I got the feeling they were all talking about it behind my back. I wouldn't ever know for sure, because no one even approached me or talked to me.

The attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one; that I was the daughter of the Sea God, whom apparently hadn't had a daughter come to camp in a _long_ time; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill me. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe.

The other campers, like I said, steered clear of me as much as possible.

Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me after what I'd done to the Ares folks in the woods, so my lessons with Luke became one-on-one. He pushed me harder than ever, and wasn't afraid to bruise me up in the process.

"You're going to need all the training you can get," he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. "Now let's try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions."

I stopped going to those and hung out in the tree when the others had their lessons, quietly observing, then I would practice with dummies later on. Sure it wasn't the same as fighting a real person, but I've always been able to learn better by myself. That's the way it's always been and it didn't look like it would change anytime soon.

Justin still taught me Greek in the mornings, but he seemed distracted. Every time I said something, he scowled at me, even more than when I was _trying _to annoy him.

After lessons, he would walk away muttering to himself: "Quest ... Poseidon? ... Dirty rotten ... Got to make a plan …"

And I would walk after him muttering, "_Him_, Pineapple... Dancing Robot..._Athena_?... Must shave Llamas..."

The only thing he understood was 'Him' and 'Athena', so with some help from our parent's reputation of _disagreeing_ I made poor clueless Justin think I insulted him. It was a simple trick and it kept me amused for a little while. Then I went back to wallowing in my loneliness.

Even Clarisse kept her distance, though her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I would just smirk at her, then immate snaping her spear. I was egging her on, but she still keep her distance. Shame, I was looking for a good fight.

I knew somebody at camp resented me, because one night I came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the _New York Daily News,_opened to the Metro page. The article took me almost an hour to read, because the angrier I got, the more the words floated around on the page.

_BOY AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER_ _FREAK CAR ACCIDENT_

_BY EILEEN SMYTHE_

_Sally Jackson and her daughter Andrea are still missing one week after their mysterious disappearance. The family's badly burned '78 Camaro was discovered last Saturday on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken. __The car had flipped and skidded for several hundred feet before exploding._

_Mother and daughter had gone for a weekend vacation to Montauk, but left hastily, under mysterious circumstances. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other signs of the missing Jacksons. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident._

_Ms. Jackson's husband, Gabe Ugliano, claims that his stepdaughter, Andrea Jackson, is a troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past. __Police would not say whether Andrea is a suspect in her mother's disappearance, __but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of Sally Jackson and Andrea. Police urge anyone with information to call the following toll-free crime-stoppers hotline._

The phone number was circled in black marker.

I wadded up the paper and threw it away, then flopped down in my bunk bed in the middle of my empty cabin. I thought about the newspaper for no more than a second, before I started humming the song I would always sing at times like this.

_I ain't gonna do you wrong,_

_While you're gone._

_I ain't gonna do you wrong,_

_Cause' I don't wanna._

_All I'm askin', is for a little_

_Respect when you get home,_

_Hey baby, when you get home!_

_R-E-S-P-E-C-T,_

_Find out what it means to me._

_R-E-S-P-E-C-T,_

_Find out what it means to me._

_RESPECT!_

Aunt Rosie always liked singing songs fitting with the mood when I was growing up. I knew all her favorite songs and loved to sometimes sing along with her. Even though I sung horribly, it was fun.

That night, I went to bed with a smile, but had my worst dream yet.

I was running along the beach in a storm. This time, there was a city behind me. Not New York. The sprawl was different: buildings spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance. About a hundred yards down the surf, two men were fighting. They looked like TV wrestlers, muscular, with beards and long hair. Both wore flowing Greek tunics, one trimmed in blue, the other in green. Were they gods?

They grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.

_Blue punches Green, IN! DAH! FACE! Green kicks Blue with extreme force and blue IS! DOWN! Oh wait he's getting back up and head-butts green IN! THE! STOMACH! A giant steel chair should appear out of nowhere, just to make it more interesting. Oh, There it is._

Despite my commentary I knew I had to stop them. I didn't know why or _how_. When I tried to run towards them, I couldn't, a invisible force wouldn't let me get any closer. Over the roar of the storm, I could hear the blue-robed one yelling at the green-robed one, _Give it back! Give it back! _Like a kindergartener fighting over a toy. Immature oaf.

The waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying me with salt. I yelled, _Stop fighting! Oh, you call that a punch... I mean, STOP IT!_

It came to me with a sudden jerk and I fell back on the sand, piecing it together. _Waves, Lightning, Why is Dad fighting with Uncle Sparky? _

The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice_._

_Come down, little hero, _the voice crooned. _Come down!_

The sand split beneath me, opening up a crevice straight down to the center of the earth. My feet slipped, and darkness swallowed me. I woke up, sure I was falling.

I was still in bed in cabin three. My senses told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. A storm was brewing. I hadn't dreamed that. I heard a clopping sound at the door, a hoof knocking on the threshold.

"Come in."

Grover trotted inside, looking worried. "Mr. D wants to see you."

I gave him a look that asked, _W__hy?_

"He wants to kill... I mean, I'd better let him tell you."

"'Kay just give me a minute."

I got dressed in a camp shirt and shorts, ruffled my hair so that its messiness looked intentional and followed, sure that I was in huge trouble. For days, I'd been half expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that I was declared a daughter of Poseidon, one of the Big Three gods who weren't supposed to have kids, I figured it was a crime for me just to be alive.

It seem like it, based on what happened to Thalia. But then again it was Mr. Doom-and-Gloom that decided her fate and he probably sent all those monsters for a reason, maybe revenge for something. I guess or hope my dad wasn't apart of what happened to Thalia, just a bystander although that's not exactly a step up. Ha! I can just hear a random voice say: **Stop bullying. If you see someone being bullied, don't be a bystander, find an adult. **

Anyway, the other gods had probably been debating the best way to punish me for existing. But then again... maybe something else is going on. Something happened at the winter solstice and everyone thinks I had something to do with it, why shouldn't the gods?

Or maybe I was being summoned because one day I got bored and went to the Big House or more specifically Mr. D's room. I could tell it was his room because of the smell and the grape vines everywhere, on probation indeed. Hmm...I wonder if painting a god's room a sparkly 'rockstar pink' is a crime, because if it is... I was in the arts and crafts cabin the _whole_ time. (wink, wink.)

Over Long Island Sound, the sky looked like ink soup coming to a boil. A hazy curtain of rain was coming in our direction, "Will the rain pass over? Chiron said it did."

"Yes," he said. "It never rains here unless we want it to."

I pointed at the storm. "Even that big of a storm?"

He glanced uneasily at the sky. "It'll pass around us. Bad weather always does."

I've noticed that, but this storm ... this one was huge.

At the volleyball pit, the kids from Apollo's cabin were playing a morning game against the satyrs. Dionysus's twins were walking around in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow. Everybody was going about their normal business, but they looked tense. They kept their eyes on the storm. Well most would, every so often I would catch someone look at me expectantly or accusingly.

Grover and I walked up to the front porch of the Big House. Dionysus sat at the pinochle table in his tiger-striped Hawaiian shirt with his Diet Coke, just as he had on my first day. Chiron sat across the table in his fake wheel chair. They were playing against invisible opponents-two sets of cards hovering in the air. And Aunt Rosie.

She was beautiful as always with her long blonde hair tied back in a bun, but her blue eyes didn't have the same shine that they usually had. In fact they were dim and it made my 'Aunt's' whole face look as gloomy as the oncoming storm. I've known her my whole life and never saw her in any mood but happy, even when I accidentally broke the jelly bean dispenser in the candy shop she inherited from her mother. The one my mother used to work at.

"Well, well," Mr. D said without looking up. "Our little celebrity."

"Cherub." I greeted

Mr.D scowled, "Don't expect me to bow to you, mortal, just because old Barnacle-Beard is your father."

A net of lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house.

"Blah, blah, blah," Dionysus said.

"As long as you expect me to bow to you, just because you're the 'god' of drunk fools."

"Alejandrine." Aunt Rosie hissed with a half-scolding and half-amused tone. I smirked as Mr. D glared at me, before turning to hug Rosie.

"How are you here?" I whispered in her ear.

"I'm a daughter of Apollo. I heard about everything. Oh, Jannie are you okay?" She whispered back with concern laced in her voice.

I nodded and released my grip, and took another look at my mother's best friend from High School in a whole new light. She was a demigod. But that meant she _must _of also known I was one too. I felt as if I should be mad at her for keeping all this from me, but I couldn't bring myself to.

I was just happy I had a family member with me, one that doesn't care who my dad was. I was happy that she was here, she always reminded me of my mom. They were both kind. They were both beautiful. They both took care of me. But Rosie was quieter, she never talked much around people other than me and my mom. I don't know why she just didn't.

I looked at the others in the room with a questioning look. Chiron feigned interest in his pinochle cards. Grover cowered by the railing, his hooves clopping back and forth. And Cherub just ignored my Aunt Rosie and our whole reunion in general.

"If I had my way," Dionysus said, "I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm."

"Spontaneous combustion _is _a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron put in.

I snorted.

"Nonsense," Dionysus said. "The girl wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself. I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to your father."

"But I'd make such a wonderful dolphin."

"Mr. D—" Chiron warned.

"Oh, all right," Dionysus relented. "There's one more option. But it's deadly foolishness."

Dionysus rose, and the invisible players' cards dropped to the table. "I'm off to Olympus for the emergency meeting. If the girl is still here when I get back, I'll turn her into an Atlantic bottlenose. Do you understand? And Alejandrine Jackson, if you're at all smart, you'll see that's a much more sensible choice than what Chiron feels you must do."

Dionysus picked up a playing card, twisted it, and it became a plastic rectangle. A security pass. He snapped his fingers. The air seemed to fold and bend around him. He became a hologram, then a wind, then he was gone, leaving only the smell of fresh-pressed grapes lingering behind.

I rolled my eyes. Chiron smiled at me, but he looked tired and strained. "Sit, Andrea, please. And Grover. You as well, Rosie."

We did. Chiron laid his cards on the table, a winning hand he hadn't gotten to use. I need to get him to teach me how to play.

"Tell me, Andrea," he said. "What did you make of the hellhound?"

Just hearing the name made me go stiff. I didn't know how to respond to that or the right words to say.

"I hated it, it made me feel weak, helpless, it scared me," I said. "And if you hadn't shot it, I'd be dead."

"You'll meet worse, Andrea. Far worse, before you're done."

"What exactly are you talking about?"

"Your quest, of course. Will you accept it?"

I glanced at Grover, who was crossing his fingers. Then at Aunt Rosie who looked worried.

I said, "What is the quest?"

Chiron grimaced. "Well, that's the hard part, the details."

Thunder rumbled across the valley. The storm clouds had now reached the edge of the beach. As far as I could see, the sky and the sea were boiling together.

"Poseidon and Zeus," I mumbled. "They're fighting."

Chiron, Grover, and Aunt Rosie exchanged looks.

Chiron sat forward in his wheelchair. "How did you know that?"

"The weather. Justin. And ... I've also been having these dreams." I stated simply looking out the window at the storm.

"I knew it," Grover said.

"Hush, satyr," Chiron ordered.

"But it is her quest!" Grover's eyes were bright with excitement. "It must be!"

"Only the Oracle can determine." Aunt Rosie put in.

Chiron stroked his bristly beard. "Nevertheless, Andrea, you are correct. Your father and Zeus are having their worst quarrel in centuries. They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning bolt."

"A Lightning bolt." I repeated.

"Do not take this lightly," Chiron warned. "I'm not talking about some tinfoil-covered zigzag you'd see in a second-grade play. I'm talking about a two-foot-long cylinder of high-grade celestial bronze, capped on both ends with god-level explosives."

"Cool."

"Zeus's master bolt," Chiron said, getting worked up now. "The symbol of his power, from which all other lightning bolts are patterned. The first weapon made by the Cyclopes for the war against the Titans, the bolt that sheered the top off Mount Etna and hurled Kronos from his throne; the master bolt, which packs enough power to make mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers."

"And it's Stolen?"

"Yes," Chiron said.

"By whom?"

"By you."

"_What_?"

"At least"—Chiron held up a hand—"that's what Zeus thinks. During the winter solstice, at the last council of the gods, Zeus and Poseidon had an argument. The usual nonsense: 'Mother Rhea always liked you best,' 'Air disasters are more spectacular than sea disasters,' etcetera. Afterward, Zeus realized his master bolt was missing, taken from the throne room under his very nose. He immediately blamed Poseidon. Now, a god cannot usurp another god's symbol of power directly—that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Zeus believes your father convinced a human hero to take it."

"But I didn't—"

"Patience and listen, child," Chiron said. "Zeus has good reason to be suspicious. The forges of the Cyclopes are under the ocean, which gives Poseidon some influence over the makers of his brother's lightning. Zeus believes Poseidon has taken the master bolt, and is now secretly having the Cyclopes build an arsenal of illegal copies, which might be used to topple Zeus from his throne. The only thing Zeus wasn't sure about was which hero Poseidon used to steal the bolt. Now Poseidon has openly claimed you as his daughter. You were in New York over the winter holidays. You could easily have snuck into Olympus. Zeus believes he has found his thief."

"But I've never even been to Olympus! I didn't even know about the gods until a couple of weeks ago! Is Zeus _that stupid_!"

The trio that sat across from me glanced nervously at the sky. The clouds didn't seem to be parting around us, as Grover had promised. They were rolling straight over our valley, sealing us in like a coffin lid.

"Er, Andrea ...?" Grover said. "We don't use the s-word to describe the Lord of the Sky."

"Right, _Sorry._ Is Zeus that _l__udicrous. _Is that better?" I said in a sweet, mocking voice and the thunder rumbled ahead once more.

"_Alejandrine_." Auntie Rosie warned.

"Perhaps _paranoid_,"Chiron suggested.

"I was looking more along of the lines of _unhinged."_

Thunder ran through the camp, but this time Chiron ignored it, me, and continued, "Then again, Poseidon has tried to unseat Zeus before. I believe that was question thirty-eight on your final exam..."

He looked at me as if he actually expected me to remember question thirty-eight. I didn't remember what the question was, but I knew what he was talking about.

"The golden net. Zeus didn't have the best track record as a leader. And in my opinion still doesn't (Thunder). So _once_, My dad and the rest of their siblings tied Zeus up in a golden net and wouldn't let him out until he promised to be a better ruler."

"Correct," Chiron said. "And Zeus has never trusted Poseidon since. Of course, Poseidon denies stealing the master bolt. He took great offense at the accusation. The two have been arguing back and forth for months, threatening war. And now, you've come along—the proverbial last straw."

"Wow! I knew I was irritating, but not that irritating."

"Andrea," Grover cut in, "if you were Zeus, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrow you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, that he's fathered a new mortal hero who might be used as a weapon against you... Wouldn't that put a twist in your toga?"

"Three thing wrong with that; I don't wear a toga, I'm not a guy, and my dad didn't do it."

Aunt Rosie let out a small chuckle and Chiron sighed.

"Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not Poseidon's style. But the Sea God is too proud to try convincing Zeus of that. Zeus has demanded that Poseidon return the bolt by the summer solstice. That's June twenty-first, ten days from now. Poseidon wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hoped that diplomacy might prevail, that Hera or Demeter or Hestia would make the two brothers see sense. But your arrival has inflamed Zeus's temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the master bolt is found and returned to Zeus before the solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a full-fledged war would look like, Andrea?"

"Catastrophic?"

"Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus and Poseidon. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight."

"Catastrophic," I repeated.

"And you, Andrea Jackson, would be the first to feel Zeus's wrath."

It started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky. I glared at the sky. _I _had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Zeus was punishing the whole camp because of me. I was furious.

"So I have to find the stupid bolt," I said.

"What better peace offering," Chiron said, "than to have the daughter of Poseidon return Zeus's property?"

"I get it. But where do I start?"

"I believe I know." Chiron's expression was grim.

"Part of a prophecy I had years ago ... well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle."

"Why can't you tell me where the bolt is beforehand?"

"Because if I did, you would be too afraid to accept the challenge."

"Do you even know, like you're one hundred percent sure?"

"You agree then?"

I looked at Grover, who nodded encouragingly. Then I glanced at Aunt Rosie, she looked worried. And I understood why, Zeus wanted to kill me the first chance he got.

"All right," I said. "I've got nothing better to do, other than being turned into a dolphin."

"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron said. "Go upstairs, Andrea Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming your still sane, we will talk more."

"Dear Chiron, we will talk more. Fore, I lost my sanity when I entered this world." I said mocking his tone.

Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trap door. I pulled the cord. The door swung down, and a wooden ladder clattered into place. The warm air from above smelled like mildew and rotten wood and something else ... a smell I remembered from biology class. Reptiles. The smell of snakes.

I held my breath and climbed.

The attic was filled with Greek hero junk: armor stands covered in cobwebs; once-bright shields pitted with rust; old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying ITHAKA, CIRCE'S ISLE, and LAND OF THE AMAZONS. One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled_things_—severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, various other parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant snake's head, but with horns and a full set of shark's teeth. The plaque read, HYDRA HEAD #1, WOODSTOCK, N.Y., 1969.

By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all: a mummy.

Not the wrapped-in-cloth kind, but a human female body shriveled to a husk. She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she'd been dead a long, long time.

Looking at her sent chills up my back. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the mummy's mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes. Inside my head, I heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around my brain:_I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask._

I just stared at the oracle. She was some kind of gruesome receptacle for something else, the power that was now swirling around me in the green mist. But its presence didn't feel evil, like my demonic math teacher Mrs. Dodds or the Minotaur. It felt more like the Three Fates I'd seen knitting the yarn outside the highway fruit stand: ancient, powerful, and definitely _not _human. But not particularly interested in killing me, either.

"Where will my quest take me?"

The mist swirled more thickly, collecting right in front of me and around the table with the pickled monster-part jars. Suddenly there were four men sitting around the table, playing cards. Their faces became clearer. It was Smelly Gabe and his buddies. My fists clenched.

_Well_, I thought. _There goes my morning and I was having such a good one._

Gabe turned toward me and spoke in the rasping voice of the Oracle: _You shall go west, and face the god who has turned._

His buddy on the right looked up and said in the same voice: _You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned._

The guy on the left threw in two poker chips, then said: _You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend._

Finally, Eddie, our building superior, delivered the worst line of all: _And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end._

The figures began to dissolve. At first I was too stunned to say anything, but as the mist retreated, coiling into a huge green serpent and slithering back into the mouth of the mummy. The tail of the mist snake disappeared into the mummy's mouth. She reclined back against the wall. Her mouth closed tight, as if it hadn't been open in a hundred years. The attic was silent again, abandoned, nothing but a room full of mementos.

My audience with the Oracle was over.

"Well?" Chiron asked me.

I slumped into a chair at the pinochle table. "She said I would retrieve what was stolen."

Grover sat forward, chewing excitedly on the remains of a Diet Coke can. "That's great!"

"What did the Oracle say _exactly?" _Chiron pressed. "This is important."

"_You shall go west, and face the god who has turned. __You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned,_" I recited.

"I knew it," Grover said.

Chiron didn't look satisfied. "Anything else?"

I didn't want to tell him. What friend would betray me? I didn't have any. And the last line—I would fail to save what mattered most. I shock my head, "It was pretty short."

He studied my face. "Very well, Andrea. But know this: the Oracle's words often have double meanings. Don't dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass."

I got the feeling he knew I was holding back something bad, and he was trying to make me feel better. But the knowing look Aunt Rosie was also sending my way was... unsettling.

"Okay," I said, anxious to change topics. "So where do I go? Who's this god in the west?"

"Ah, think, Andrea," Chiron said. "If Zeus and Poseidon weaken each other in a war, who stands to gain?"

Great more unclear answers.

"Somebody else who wants to take over?" I guessed.

"Yes, quite. Someone who harbors a grudge, who has been unhappy with his lot since the world was divided eons ago, whose kingdom would grow powerful with the deaths of millions. Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath that both of them have now broken."

I thought about my dreams, the evil voice that had spoken from under the ground. "Hades."

Chiron nodded. "The Lord of the Dead is the only possibility."

A scrap of aluminum dribbled out of Grover's mouth. "Whoa, wait. Wh-what?"

"A Fury came after Andrea," Chiron reminded him. "She watched the young lady until she was sure of her identity, then tried to kill her. Furies obey only one lord: Hades."

"Yes, but—but Hades hates _all _heroes," Grover protested. "Especially if he has found out Andrea is a daughter of Poseidon..."

"A hellhound got into the forest," Chiron continued. "Those can only be summoned from the Fields of Punishment, and it had to be summoned by someone within the camp. Hades must have a spy here. He must suspect Poseidon will try to use Andrea to clear his name. Hades would very much like to kill this young half-blood before he can take on the quest."

I nodded. It made sence, but one thing didn't fit. How could've Hades stolen the bolt? He couldn't, He was a god. His spy could, but once the spy hands why would they give it to Hades? Why would they give up the most powerful thing the world?

"But a quest to ..." Grover swallowed. "I mean, couldn't the master bolt be in some place like Maine? Maine's very nice this time of year."

I raised my eyebrows, while Aunt Rosie chuckled again.

"Hades sent a minion to steal the master bolt," Chiron insisted. "He hid it in the Underworld, knowing full well that Zeus would blame Poseidon. I don't pretend to under stand the Lord of the Dead's motives perfectly, or why he chose this time to start a war, but one thing is certain. Andrea must go to the Underworld, find the master bolt, and reveal the truth."

"Because I am all about the truth."

A strange fire burned in my stomach. It was anticipation. The desire for revenge. Hades had tried to kill me three times so far, with the Fury, the Minotaur, and the hellhound. It was his fault my mother had disappeared in a flash of light. Now he was trying to frame me and my dad for a theft we hadn't committed.

I was ready to take him on.

Besides, if my mother was in the Underworld…

_Wait, you know you don't have all the pieces. Heck, you were just annoyed because you didn't have all the pieces. If there one thing you know it's DON'T JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS, _My brain reason with me and the fire dimmed, but I was excited. Yes, I was excited and I couldn't wait to start my first quest.

Grover was trembling. He'd started eating pinochle cards like potato chips. I wondered why, before it dawned on me, _How could of I have forgotten?_The poor guy needed to complete a quest with me so he could get his searcher's license, but my quest nothing less of suicide.

"Look, if we know it's Hades," I told Chiron, "why not let the gods go and question him or something?"

"Suspecting and knowing are not the same," Chiron said. "Besides, even if the other gods suspect Hades—and I imagine Poseidon does—they couldn't retrieve the bolt themselves. Gods cannot cross each other's territories except by invitation. That is another ancient rule. Heroes, on the other hand, have certain privileges. They can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as they're bold enough and strong enough to do it. No god can be held responsible for a hero's actions. Why do you think the gods always operate through humans?"

"What are you saying exactly? That I am just some tool for war."

"I'm saying it's no accident Poseidon has claimed you now. It's a very risky gamble, but he's in a desperate situation. He needs you."

I didn't know what to think, what to feel. I never even met him and now... my dad needs me. It's _strange _to be needed. I looked at Chiron. "You've known I was Poseidon's daughter all along, haven't you?"

"I had my suspicions. As I said ... I've spoken to the Oracle, too."

I got the feeling there was a lot he wasn't telling me about his prophecy, but I decided I couldn't worry about that right now. After all, I was holding back information too. But still...

"So let me get this straight," I said. "I'm supposed go to the Underworld and confront the Lord of the Dead."

"Check," Chiron said.

"Find the most powerful weapon in the universe."

"Check."

"And get it back to Olympus before the summer solstice, in ten days."

"That's about right."

I looked at Grover, who gulped down the ace of hearts.

"Did I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?" he asked weakly.

"Yes. Do you really want to go?"

"Oh..." He shifted his hooves. "it's just that satyrs and underground places... well..."

He took a deep breath, then stood, brushing the shredded cards and aluminum bits off his T-shirt. "You saved my life, Andrea. If ... if you're serious about wanting me along, I won't let you down."

I let out a sigh of relief. Grover was the only friend I'd since third grade. I wasn't sure what good a satyr could do against the forces of the dead, but I felt better knowing he'd be with me.

"I hope not," I said with a teasing smile, before turning to Chiron. "So where do we go? The Oracle just said to go west."

"The entrance to the Underworld is always in the west. It moves from age to age, just like Olympus. Right now, of course, it's in America."

"Where?"

Chiron looked surprised. "I thought that would be obvious enough. The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles."

"Oh, right how could have I been so stupid to not see the obvious. How are we going to get there? I guessing not on a plane."

"No! You are the daughter of the Sea God. Your father's bitterest rival is Zeus, Lord of the Sky. Sally knew better than to trust you in an airplane. You would be in Zeus's domain. You would never come down again alive," Aunt Rosie said.

Overhead, lightning crackled. Thunder boomed.

"That's right," Chiron said. "Two companions may accompany you. Grover is one. The other has already volunteered, if you will accept his help."

"Gee," I said, feigning surprise. "Who else would be stupid enough to volunteer for a quest like this?"

The air shimmered behind Chiron. Justin became visible, stuffing his Yankees cap into his back pocket.

"I've been waiting a long time for a quest, Seaweed Brain," he said. "Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you from messing up."

"If you do say so yourself," I said. "I suppose you have a plan, Wise one?"

His cheeks colored as I smirked. "Do you want my help or not?"

"I guess I could use a human shield."

"Excellent," Chiron said. "This afternoon, we can take you as far as the bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, you are on your own."

Lightning flashed. Rain poured down on the meadows that were never supposed to have violent weather.

"No time to waste," Chiron said. "I think you should all get packing."

* * *

**P.S. Sorry for any mistakes I made in the story. And you'll get to know Rosie more in the next chapter, but there's a little bit of her background.**

**Aunt Rosie or Rosamond Edwards met Sally Jackson 7 months before Andrea was born. She does have any talents outside of being able to tell whether something bad is going to happen or if someone is important. Even though Sally was unaware of her child at the time, Rosie knew that the child will be something to behold. ****Rosie and Sally first started off with a friendship based off of the fact that Rosie was a demigod and so was Sally's unborn child, but both became close and soon became best friends. **

**When Andrea was born she along with Sally fell in love with her immutably. But she could feel power radiating off the child that was barely a couple of minutes old. She knew Andrea would become a great hero and watched after her at every chance she got. She even helped with getting Andrea in the past three schools by paying a bit extra (although Andrea will never no). **

**She loves Sally and Andrea. They are the only real thing she had since her mother died just a year before she met Sally and her time at the Apollo Cabin was never the best. She was made fun of because she didn't show any promise in anything outside of healing.**

**I think that about sums it up.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Happy Easter and enjoy!**

* * *

I entered my cabin with Aunt Rosie behind me. I took out my backpack and started packing my few belongings and she sat on one of the beds watching me.

I had my sketch book in hand and was mentally debating with my self if I should bring it when Aunt Rosie spoke up, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. It's just both Sally and I though it was best if you didn't know, your scent would be less noticable."

I set my sketchbook down, "I don't really care about that."

Aunt Rosie shrugged, "You never know when it comes to you, your emotions are like the sea, unpredictable." I smiled slightly as Rosie continued, "Do you really know what you're getting into?"

"Do you mean the Quest?"

"Everything."

"No."

"When you were born," Aunt Rosie started. "Your mother asked me to do something to help keep you save in the future. She asked me to find and if possible forge you a weapon. Now, I know you are currently only trained with a sword, but I can't hurt to take them. Especially with where your going."

She held out a necklace and ear cuff. The necklace was a simple black choker with a wave shaped charm on it. The ear cuff was a bit more complex with silver arms curling around and invisible space and in the center there was a pearl.

I pulled up my hair so she could put on the necklace for me, "This is Nereus, it turns in to a dagger if you just will in to."

Aunt Rosie then held out the ear cuff, "And this is Pegeen, it belonged to the last daughter of Poseidon. Unfortunately I don't know what it is or how to turn it into it's weapon form."

I was confused with this statement, "Why not?"

"Because Chiron gave it to me so I could give it to you this morning. All he said was 'you will know how to use it when you are ready'."

I nodded and put it on, then walked across the cabin to look out at the lake, "Why am I doing this?"

"Because you want to help your father."

"But he... Why am I all of a sudden important to him? I mean he did ignore me for my whole life."

Aunt Rosie started shaking her head frantically, "You were always important to him, to everyone, but in the future you'll find out how important, how _special _you really are."

I stared at her for a second before crossing the room, zipping up my backpack and walking out the door. Stopping at the porch I looked back at my aunt afraid I won't see her again, "Bye, I'll send you a postcard from the underworld."

She laughed, "You do that."

Smiling, I walked back towards the Big House with my backpack resting on my shoulder and a determined look on my face. _I will see Aunt Rosie again. I will stop the war. And I will get my mother back,_ I promised myself and when I make a promise I keep it. Well, most of the time I keep it.

The camp store loaned me one hundred dollars in mortal money and twenty golden drachmas. These coins were as big as Girl Scout cookies and had images of various Greek gods stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other. The ancient mortal drachmas had been silver, Chiron told us, but Olympians never used less than pure gold.

It made the gods sound like spoiled brats.

Chiron said the coins might come in handy for non-mortal transactions—whatever that meant. He gave Justin and me each a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares, to be used only in emergencies, if we were seriously hurt. It was god food, Chiron reminded us. It would cure us of almost any injury, but it was lethal to mortals. Too much of it would make a half-blood very, very feverish. An overdose would burn us up, literally.

Justin didn't even let me touch it before he put the stuff in his bag, he told me 'I was probably going to lose it.'

Thanks a lot!

Justin was bringing his magic Yankees cap, which he told me had been a twelfth-birthday present from his mom. He carried a book on famous classical architecture, written in Ancient Greek, to read when he got bored, and a long bronze knife, hidden in his shirt sleeve.

I was sure the knife would get us busted the first time we went through a metal detector and when I pointed this out he told me to shut up!

Again thanks, I love you, you complete me and all that.

Grover wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as human. He wore a green rasta-style cap, because when it rained his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tips of his horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to snack on. In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart's Piano Concerto no. 12 and Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday," both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes and that was putting it _nicely_.

We waved good-bye to the other campers, took one last look at the strawberry fields, the ocean, and the Big House, then hiked up Half-Blood Hill to the tall pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus.

Chiron was waiting for us in his wheelchair. Next to him stood the guy I'd seen when I was recovering in the sick room. According to Grover, the guy was the camp's head of security. He supposedly had eyes all over his body so he could never be surprised. Today, though, he was wearing a chauffeur's uniform, so I could only see extra peepers on his hands, face and neck. It was kind of disturbing, but pretty cool at the same time.

"This is Argus," Chiron told me. "He will drive you into the city, and, er, well, keep an eye on things."

"Bad pun."

I heard footsteps behind us.

Luke came running up the hill, carrying a pair of basketball shoes.

"Hey!" he panted. "Glad I caught you."

Justin smiled at the sight of his 'brother'. I sighed, _Enter Justin the boot licker. _

"Just wanted to say good luck," Luke told me. "And I thought ... um, maybe you could use these."

He handed me the sneakers, which looked pretty normal. They even smelled kind of normal, don't ask why I smelled them.

Luke said, "_Maia_!"

White bird's wings sprouted out of the heels, startling me so much, I dropped them. The shoes flapped around on the ground until the wings folded up and disappeared.

"Awesome!" Grover said.

Luke smiled. "Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from Dad. Of course, I don't use them much these days..." His expression turned sad.

I didn't know what to say. It was cool enough that Luke had come to say good-bye. I'd been afraid he might resent me for getting so much attention the last few days or because I ditched his classes. But here he was giving me a magic gift... It almost made me blush.

I said, "Thanks."

"Listen, Andrea ..." Luke looked uncomfortable. "A lot of hopes are riding on you. So just ... kill some monsters for me, okay?"

He gave me a hug. Well, he tried to and failed, because I just stood there awkwardly. I looked at Grover and Justin with a pleading looking for help, I don't do hugs, but all I saw was Grover and Luke with a strange glint in his eyes. Neither were going to help me, they didn't have to, because he let me go.

Luke moved and patted Grover's head between his horns, then gave a good-bye hug to a stiff Justin, who looked like he was about to punch him.

After Luke was gone, I told him, "Now, you realise I was right?"

"No."

"You let him capture the flag instead of you and he does care about your work and doesn't respect you."

"Oh... why do I want to go anywhere with you, Andrea?"

"Hmmmm, let me think, because you are using me to go on a quest."

He glared at me and stomped down the other side of the hill, where a white SUV waited on the shoulder of the road. Argus followed, jingling his car keys.

I picked up the flying shoes, realised something and looked at Chiron. "I won't be able to use these, will I?"

He shook his head. "Luke meant well, Andrea. But taking to the air ... that would not be wise for you."

I nodded, disappointed, but then I got an idea. "Hey, Grover. You want a magic item?"

His eyes lit up. "Me?"

Pretty soon we'd laced the sneakers over his fake feet, and the world's first flying goat boy was ready for launch.

"_Maia_!" he shouted.

He got off the ground okay, but then fell over sideways so his backpack dragged through the grass. The winged shoes kept bucking up and down like tiny broncos.

"Practice," Chiron called after him. "You just need practice!"

"Aaaaa!" Grover went flying sideways down the hill like a possessed lawn mower, heading toward the van.

I laughed, before I could follow, Chiron caught my arm. "I should have trained you better, Andrea," he said. "If only I had more time. Hercules, Jason—they all got more training."

"That's okay. I just wish—"

I stopped myself because I was about to sound like a brat. I was wishing my dad had given me a cool magic item to help on the quest, something as good as Luke's flying shoes, or Justin's invisible cap.

"Yes," Chiron pushed.

"-that I had a magical item from my father."

"You do."

"I do?"

He gestured to the bracelet on my wrist, "Andrea, that's a gift from your father. I've kept it for years, not knowing you were who I was waiting for. But the prophecy is clear to me now. You are the one."

I pressed down on the sword in the middle. In half a second, I held a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather-wrapped grip, and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs. I examined it as if I was going to find what was so special about the sword and me engraved on it.

"The sword has a long and tragic history that we need not go into," Chiron told me. "Its name is Anaklusmos."

"'Riptide,'" I translated.

"Use it only for emergencies," Chiron said, "and only against monsters. No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely necessary, of course, but this sword wouldn't harm them in any case."

I looked at the wickedly sharp blade. "Why not?"

"The sword is celestial bronze. Forged by the Cyclopes, tempered in the heart of Mount Etna, cooled in the River Lethe. It's deadly to monsters, to any creature from the Underworld, provided they don't kill you first. But the blade will pass through mortals like an illusion. They simply are not important enough for the blade to kill. And I should warn you: as a demigod, you can be killed by either celestial or normal weapons. You are _twice _as vulnerable."

"Wonderful."

"Now turn it back."

I traced the small jewels on the bottom of the sword and it turn back into I bracelet. I slipped it on, but I was worried it would fall off and I'd lose it.

"You can't," Chiron said.

"Can't what?"

"Lose the bracelet," he said. "It is enchanted. It will always reappear on your wrist. Try it."

I was wary, but I threw the bracelet as far as I could down the hill and watched it disappear in the grass.

"It may take a few moments," Chiron told me.

Suddenly I felt wight back on my wrist and the bracelet was there.

"Okay, that's _extremely _cool," I admitted. "But what if a mortal sees me pulling out a sword?"

Chiron smiled. "Mist is a powerful thing, Andrea."

"Mist?"

"Yes. Read _The Iliad. _It's full of references to the stuff. Whenever divine or monstrous elements mix with the mortal world, they generate Mist, which obscures the vision of humans. You will see things just as they are, being a half-blood, but humans will interpret things quite differently. Remarkable, really, the lengths to which humans will go to fit things into their version of reality."

"I have read _The Iliad_." I grumbled and walked down the hill.

For the first time, the quest felt real. I was actually leaving Half-Blood Hill. I was heading west with no adult supervision, no backup plan, not even a cell phone. (Chiron said cell phones were traceable by monsters; if we used one, it would be worse than sending up a flare.) I had no weapon stronger than a sword to fight off monsters and reach the Land of the Dead.

"Chiron ..." I said. "When you say the gods are immortal, but there was a time _before _them..."

"Four ages before them, actually. The Time of the Titans was the Fourth Age, sometimes called the Golden Age, which is definitely a misnomer. This, the time of Western civilization and the rule of Zeus, is the Fifth Age."

"So what was it like ... before the gods?"

Chiron pursed his lips. "Even I am not old enough to remember that, child, but I know it was a time of darkness and savagery for mortals. Kronos, the lord of the Titans, called his reign the Golden Age because men lived innocent and free of all knowledge. But that was mere propaganda. The Titan king cared nothing for your kind except as appetizers or a source of cheap entertainment. It was only in the early reign of Lord Zeus, when Prometheus the good Titan brought fire to mankind, that your species began to progress, and even then Prometheus was branded a radical thinker. Zeus punished him severely, as you may recall. Of course, eventually the gods warmed to humans, and Western civilization was born."

_Oh, the gods warmed to the humans alright._

"But the gods can't die, as long as Western civilization is alive, they're alive. I can't fail so bad that it would mess up _everything, _right?"

Chiron gave me a melancholy smile. "No one knows how long the Age of the West will last, Andrea. The gods are immortal, yes. But then, so were the Titans. _They _still exist, locked away in their various prisons, forced to endure endless pain and punishment, reduced in power, but still very much alive. May the Fates forbid that the gods should ever suffer such a doom, or that we should ever return to the darkness and chaos of the past. All we can do, child, is follow our destiny."

"Our destiny ... assuming we know what that is."

"Relax," Chiron told me. "Keep a clear head. And remember, you may be about to prevent the biggest war in human history."

"No pressure," I said.

When I got to the bottom of the hill, I looked back. Under the pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus, Chiron was now standing in full horse-man form, holding his bow high in salute. I smiled at him, "See ya soon."

Argus drove us out of the countryside and into western Long Island. It felt weird to be on a highway again, Justin and Grover sitting next to me as if we were normal carpoolers. After two weeks at Half-Blood Hill, the real world seemed like a fantasy. I found myself staring at every McDonald's, every kid in the back of his parents' car, every billboard and shopping mall.

"So far so good," I told Justin. "Ten miles and not a single monster."

He gave me an irritated look. "It's bad luck to talk that way, Seaweed Brain."

"I though you were ignoring me." Then I added, "Why do you hate me?"

"I don't hate you."

"No, of course not."

He folded her cap of invisibility. "Look ... we're just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals."

"And?"

He sighed. " One time my mom caught Poseidon with his girlfriend in Athena's temple, which is _hugely _disrespectful. Another time, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her."

"But olives are _gross._"

"Oh, forget it."

"Personally I think saltwater springs are pretty cool."

"I said, forget it!"

"You know, you told me about some of are parent's _diffrences_, but I still don't get what this has to do with us."

"Drop it."

"I'm not a dog."

"_Andrea."_

"Fine, jeesh." I smirked at Justin's red face. In the front seat, Argus smiled. He didn't say anything, but one blue eye on the back of his neck winked at me. Traffic slowed us down in Queens. By the time we got into Manhattan it was sunset and starting to rain.

Argus dropped us at the Greyhound Station on the Upper East Side, not far from my mom and Gabe's apartment. Taped to a mailbox was a soggy flyer with my picture on it: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?

I ripped it down before Justin and Grover could notice.

Argus unloaded our bags, made sure we got our bus tickets, then drove away, the eye on the back of his hand opening to watch us as he pulled out of the parking lot. I smiled at him and waved, _I like him._

I thought about how close I was to my old apartment. On a normal summer day, my mom would be home from the candy store by now. Smelly Gabe was probably up there right now, playing poker, not even missing her. And I would be at the park reading old textbooks so that I don't fall behind in school.

Grover shouldered his backpack. He gazed down the street in the direction I was looking. "You want to know why she married him, Andrea?"

I stared at him. "Were you reading my mind or something?"

"Just your emotions." He shrugged. "Guess I forgot to tell you satyrs can do that. You were thinking about your mom and your stepdad, right?"

I nodded, wondering what else Grover might've forgotten to tell me.

"Your mom married Gabe for _you,"_Grover told me. "You call him 'Smelly,' but you've got no idea. The guy has this aura…. Yuck. I can smell him from here. I can smell traces of him on you, and you haven't been near him for a week."

"Thanks, Uncle spar- Zeus I know you hate me but have mercy and let it rain," I yelled at the all ready raining sky.

Thunder rumbled and the rain stopped.

"He's not going to get the best uncle award anytime soon, I can tell you that."

"You should be grateful, Andrea. Your stepfather smells so repulsively human he could mask the presence of any demigod. As soon as I took a whiff inside his Camaro, I knew: Gabe has been covering your scent for years. If you hadn't lived with him every summer, you probably would've been found by monsters a long time ago. Your mom stayed with him to protect you. She was a smart lady. She must've loved you a lot to put up with that guy—if that makes you feel any better."

It didn't, it made me feel as if I ruined her life and I probably did.

I wondered if Grover could still read my emotions, mixed up as they were. I was glad he and Justin were with me, but I felt guilty that I hadn't been straight with them. I hadn't told them the real reason I'd said yes to this crazy quest.

The truth was, I didn't care about retrieving Zeus's lightning bolt, or saving the world, or even helping my father out of trouble (well maybe that was part of the reason). The more I thought about it, Poseidon never visited me, never helped my mom, never even sent a lousy child-support check and He'd may of only claimed me because he needed a job done. Yet, I still cared about what happened to him, because he _was _my dad.

But this was about my mom, I cared about her more, she raised me. Hades had taken her unfairly and Hades was going to give her back.

_You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend, _the Oracle whispered in my mind._You will fail to save what matters most in the end._

_Thanks for the reminder, _I told it.

I stared at Justin with a look that my mom has, that looked into people's souls. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't imagine him betraying me, he wasn't that type of person and Grover, well Grover needed this. So, he wasn't going to pull a fast one on us anytime soon, I don't even think he could. He's much to obvious.

The rain started coming down, again. We got restless waiting for the bus and decided to play some Hacky Sack with one of Grover's apples. Justin was unbelievable. He could bounce the apple off his knee, his elbow, his shoulder, whatever. I was pretty good, too.

The game ended when I tossed the apple toward Grover and it got too close to his mouth. In one mega goat bite, our Hacky Sack disappeared—core, stem, and all. Grover blushed. He tried to apologize, but Justin and I were too busy laughing.

Finally the bus came. As we stood in line to board, Grover started looking around, sniffing the air like he smelled his favorite school cafeteria delicacy—enchiladas.

"What do you smell?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said tensely. "Maybe it's nothing."

But I could tell it wasn't nothing. I started looking over my shoulder, too. I was relieved when we finally got on board and found seats together in the back of the bus. We stowed our back packs. Justin kept slapping his Yankees cap nervously against his thigh.

As the last passengers got on, Justin clamped his hand onto my knee. "Andrea."

An old lady had just boarded the bus. She wore a crumpled velvet dress, lace gloves, and a shapeless orange-knit hat that shadowed her face, and she carried a big paisley purse. When she tilted her head up and her black eyes glittered. It was Mrs. Dodds. Older, more withered, but definitely the same evil face.

I strighted up in my seat, but then Justin forced me down and hid me by getting in front of me.

Behind her came two more old ladies: one in a green hat, one in a purple hat. Otherwise they looked exactly like Mrs. Dodds—same gnarled hands, paisley handbags, wrinkled velvet dresses. Triplet demon grandmothers have come to join the party.

They sat in the front row, right behind the driver. The two on the aisle crossed their legs over the walkway, making an X. It was casual enough, but it sent a clear message: nobody bus pulled out of the station, and we headed through the slick streets of Manhattan.

"She didn't stay dead long," I whispered. "I thought you said they could be dispelled for a lifetime."

"I said if you're _lucky_," Justin said. "You're obviously not."

"Oh, I'm not. Gee, here I was thinking I was the luckiest person on the planet."

I twisted in my seat (I wasn't allowed up, yet), just enough to see Justin smiling.

"All three of them," Grover whimpered._"Di immortales!"_

"It's okay," Justin said, obviously thinking hard. "The Furies. The three worst monsters from the Underworld. No problem. No problem. We'll just slip out the windows."

"They don't open," Grover moaned.

"A back exit?" I suggested. There wasn't one. Even if there had been, it wouldn't have helped. By that time, we were on Ninth Avenue, heading for the Lincoln Tunnel.

"They won't attack us with witnesses around," I said. "Will they?"

"Mortals don't have good eyes," Justin reminded me. "Their brains can only process what they see through the Mist."

"What will they see?"

He thought about it. "Hard to say. But we can't count on mortals for help. Maybe an emergency exit in the roof ... ?"

We hit the Lincoln Tunnel, and the bus went dark except for the running lights down the aisle. It was eerily quiet without the sound of the rain. Mrs. Dodds got up. In a flat voice, as if she'd rehearsed it, she announced to the whole bus: "I need to use the rest-room."

"So do I," said the second sister.

"So do I," said the third sister.

_Okay, _I thought. _H__opefully they a__re young enough to go alone, because I will not help them. _

They all started coming down the aisle.

"I've got it,"Justin said. "Andrea, take my hat."

"What?"

"You're the one they want. Turn invisible and go up the aisle. Let them pass you. Maybe you can get to the front and get away."

"But you guys—"

"There's an outside chance they might not notice us," Justin said. "You're a daughter of one of the Big Three. Your smell might be overpowering."

"Still, I can't just leave you."

"Don't worry about us," Grover said. "Go!"

I felt like a coward, but I took the Yankees cap and put it on. When I looked down, my body wasn't there anymore. I started creeping up the aisle. I managed to get up ten rows, then duck into an empty seat just as the Furies walked past. Mrs. Dodds stopped, sniffing, and looked straight at me. I half-hoped that she would sense me, so I could help my friends.

Apparently she didn't see anything. She and her sisters kept going. I was free. I made it to the front of the bus. We were almost through the Lincoln Tunnel now. I was about to press the emergency stop button when I heard hideous wailing from the back row.

The old ladies were not old ladies anymore. Their faces were still the same—I guess those couldn't get any uglier— but their bodies had shriveled into leathery brown hag bodies with bat's wings and hands and feet like gargoyle claws. Their handbags had turned into fiery whips.

The Furies surrounded Grover and Justin, lashing their whips, hissing: "Where is it? Where?"

The other people on the bus were screaming, cowering in their seats. They saw _something, _all right.

"She's not here!"Justin yelled. "She's gone!"

The Furies raised their whips. Justin drew his bronze knife. Grover grabbed a tin can from his snack bag and prepared to throw it.

What I did next was so impulsive and dangerous I should've been named ADHD poster child of the year. The bus driver was distracted, trying to see what was going on in his rearview mirror.

Still invisible, I grabbed the wheel from him and jerked it to the left. Everybody howled as they were thrown to the right, and I heard what I hoped was the sound of three Furies smashing against the windows. I hoped Grover and Justin weren't hurt.

"Hey!" the driver yelled. "Hey—whoa!"

We wrestled for the wheel. The bus slammed against the side of the tunnel, grinding metal, throwing sparks a mile behind us. We careened out of the Lincoln Tunnel and back into the rainstorm, people and monsters tossed around the bus, cars plowed aside like bowling pins.

Somehow the driver found an exit. We shot off the highway, through half a dozen traffic lights, and ended up barreling down one of those New Jersey rural roads where you can't believe there's so much nothing right across the river from New York. There were woods to our left, the Hudson River to our right, and the driver seemed to be veering toward the river.

Another great idea: I hit the emergency brake.

The bus wailed, spun a full circle on the wet asphalt, and crashed into the trees. The emergency lights came on. The door flew open. The bus driver was the first one out, the passengers yelling as they stampeded after him. I stepped into the driver's seat and let them pass.

The Furies regained their balance. They lashed their whips at Justin while he waved his knife and yelled in Ancient Greek, telling them to back off. Grover threw tin cans. I looked at the open doorway. I was free to go, but I couldn't leave them. I took off the invisible cap.

"Hey!"

The Furies turned, baring their yellow fangs at me, and I sneered right back. Mrs. Dodds stalked up the aisle, just as she used to do in class, about to deliver my C- math test. Every time she flicked her whip, red flames danced along the barbed leather. Her two ugly sisters hopped on top of the seats on either side of her and crawled toward me like huge nasty lizards.

"Alejandrine Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said, in an accent that was definitely from somewhere farther south than Georgia. "You have offended the gods. You shall die."

"I offend a lot of people lady," I told her.

She growled.

Justin and Grover moved up behind the Furies cautiously, looking for an opening. Riptide soon elongated into a shimmering double-edged sword. And took a fighting stance.

The Furies hesitated.

Mrs. Dodds had felt Riptide's blade before. She obviously didn't like seeing it again.

"Submit now," she hissed. "And you will not suffer eternal torment."

"Go back to hell," I told her.

"Andrea, look out!" Justin cried.

Mrs. Dodds lashed her whip around my sword hand while the Furies on the either side lunged at me.

One of their whips wrapped around my hand, it felt like my hand was wrapped in molten lead, but I managed not to drop Riptide. I stuck the Fury on the left with its hilt, sending her toppling backward into a seat. I turned and sliced the Fury on the right. As soon as the blade connected with her neck, she screamed and exploded into dust. Justin got Mrs. Dodds in a wrestler's hold and yanked her backward while Grover ripped the whip out of her hands.

"Ow!" he yelled. "Ow! Hot! Hot!"

The Fury I'd hilt-slammed came at me again, talons ready, but I swung Riptide and she broke open like a piñata.

Mrs. Dodds was trying to get Justin off her back. She kicked, clawed, hissed and bit, but Justin held on while Grover got Mrs. Dodds's legs tied up in her own whip. Finally they both shoved her backward into the aisle. Mrs. Dodds tried to get up, but she didn't have room to flap her bat wings, so she kept falling down.

I walked up in between Justin and Grover with my sword still drawn and a smirk on my face.

"Zeus will destroy you!" she promised. "Hades will have your soul!"

"_Braccas meas vescimini_!" I yelled. I wasn't sure where the Latin came from, but I just said "Eat my pants!"

I was about to behead Mrs. Dodds, but then thunder shook the bus and stopped me in my tracks

"Get out!" Justin yelled at me.

I raised my sword at Mrs. Dodds, wanting to make sure she couldn't come back for a little while. But Justin put a hand on my arm stopping me, "Now!"

He grabbed my arm and dragged me the first couple of steps before I brushed him off. We rushed outside and found the other passengers wandering around in a daze, arguing with the driver, or running around in circles yelling, "We're going to die!"

A Hawaiian-shirted tourist with a camera snapped my photograph before I could turn my sword back.

"Our bags!" Grover realized. "We left our—"

_BOOOOOM_!

I was really glad I left my sketchbook at my Cabin.

The windows of the bus exploded as the passengers ran for cover. Lightning shredded a huge crater in the roof, but an angry wail from inside told me Mrs. Dodds was not yet dead.

"Run!" Justin said. "She's calling for reinforcements! We have to get out of here!"

We plunged into the woods as the rain poured down, the bus in flames behind us, and nothing but darkness ahead.

* * *

**P.S Justin was jealous of Luke, because then he had a small crush on Andrea. Don't worry their relationship won't go to fast they'll still get together around the same time. So, his crush is pretty innocent and he'll just brush it off by the end of the quest think 'she just see's me as a friend.'**


	12. Chapter 12

**Sorry for taking so long we had a LOT of test in school this week, we aren't done, and Finals are right around the corner. But that's no excuse, I hate when it takes so long for a story to get updated so sorry (even though it was a week).**

**Thanks for the reviews and enjoy.**

* * *

In a way, it's nice to know there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong.

For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really bad luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day.

So there we were, Justin and Grover and I, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses. Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror.

"Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."

I was pretty much in shock myself. The explosion of bus windows still rang in my ears. But Justin kept pulling us along, saying: "Come on! The farther away we get, the better."

"All our money was back there," I reminded him. "Our food and clothes. Everything."

"Well, maybe if you hadn't decided to jump into the fight—"

"What did you want me to do? Let you get killed?"

"You didn't need to protect me, Andrea. I would've been fine."

"Sliced like sandwich bread," Grover put in, "but fine."

"See Grover's on my side."

"Shut up, goat boy," said Justin.

"You know I'm right, you needed my help."

"I did not need your help."

"Okay so what were you going to do, tell them I'm not there and hope they let you go. That wasn't going to work, incase you didn't notice by the Furies pulling out the fiery whips of death. Face it, you _did_ need me to help."

Grover brayed mournfully, interrupting us. "Tin cans ... a perfectly good bag of tin cans."

Our argument stopped there and we sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry. After a few minutes, Justin fell into line next to me. "Look, I..."

His voice faltered. "I appreciate your coming back for us, okay? That was really brave."

"No problem, we're a team."

He was silent for a few more steps. "It's just that if you died ... aside from the fact that it would really suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world."

The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness. I couldn't see anything of Justin except a glint of his blond hair.

"You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" I asked him.

"No... only short field trips. My dad—"

"The history nerd." I said with a smile.

"Professor. It didn't work out for me living at home. I mean, Camp Half-Blood _is _my home." He was rushing his words out now, as if he were afraid somebody might try to stop him. "At camp you train and train. And that's all cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're any good or not."

If I didn't know better, I could've sworn I heard doubt in his voice.

"You're pretty good at fighting monsters," I said.

"You think so?"

"Anybody who can piggyback-ride a Fury is okay by me."

I couldn't really see, but I thought he might've smiled.

"You know," he said, "maybe I should tell you... Something funny back on the bus..."

Whatever he wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill _toot-toot-toot, _like the sound of an owl being tortured.

"Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried.

I got on my knees, disregarding the mud and shouted at the sky, "Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Grover glared at me for a second, while Justin laughed, "Well now that you've alerted every monster within five miles of our location, can you get up?"

I looked at Justin in horror, "You made a joke."

Justin laughed again before grabbing my arm and forcing/helping me up.

Grover was ignoring us,"If I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!"

He puffed out a few notes, but the tune still sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff. Instead of finding a path, I immediately slammed into a tree and got a nice-size knot on my head. Add to the list of superpowers I did _not _have: infrared vision.

After tripping and cursing and falling into Justin and generally feeling miserable for another mile or so, I started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. I could smell food. Fried, greasy, excellent food. It smelt like a heart-attack waiting to happen.

I realized I hadn't eaten anything unhealthy since I'd arrived at Half-Blood Hill, where we lived on grapes, bread, cheese, and extra-lean-cut nymph-prepared barbecue. This girl needed greasy french fries.

We kept walking until I saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side was a closed-down gas station, a tattered billboard for a 1990s movie, and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell. It wasn't a fast-food restaurant like I'd hoped.

It was one of those weird roadside curio shops that sell lawn flamingos and wooden Indians and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that. The main building was a long, low warehouse, surrounded by acres of statuary. The neon sign above the gate was impossible for me to read, because if there's anything worse for my dyslexia than regular English, it's red _cursive_ neon English.

I couldn't read cursive at all. To me, it looked like: _ATNYU MES GDERAN GOMEN MEPROUIM._

"What the heck does that say?" I asked.

"I don't know," Justin said.

Grover translated: "Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium."

Flanking the entrance, as advertised, were two cement garden gnomes, ugly bearded little runts, smiling and waving, as if they were about to get their picture taken. I crossed the street, following the smell of the hamburgers.

"Hey..." Grover warned.

"The lights are on inside," Justin said. "Maybe it's open."

"Snack bar," I said wistfully.

"Snack bar," he agreed.

"Are you two crazy?" Grover said. "This place is weird."

We ignored him. The front lot was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes, which gave Grover the creeps.

_"Bla-ha-ha!" _he bleated. "Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand!"

We stopped at the warehouse door.

"Don't knock," Grover pleaded. "I smell monsters."

"Your nose is clogged up from the Furies,"Justin told him.

"All I smell is food. Aren't you hungry?"

"Meat!" he said scornfully. "I'm a vegetarian."

"You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans," I reminded him.

"Those are vegetables. Come on. Let's leave. These statues are ... looking at me."

Then the door creaked open, and standing in front of us was a tall Middle Eastern woman—at least, I assumed she was Middle Eastern, because she wore a long black gown that covered everything but her hands, and her head was completely veiled. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze, but that was about all I could make out. Her coffee-colored hands looked old, but well-manicured and elegant, so I imagined she was a grandmother who had once been a beautiful lady.

Her accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, too. She said, "Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?"

"They're ... um ..." Justin started to say.

"We're orphans," I said.

"Orphans?" the woman said. The word sounded alien in her mouth. "But, my dears! Surely not!"

"We got separated from our caravan," I said. "Our circus caravan. The ringmaster told us to meet him at the gas station if we got lost, but he may have forgotten, or maybe he meant a different gas station. Anyway, we're lost. Is that food I smell?"

"Oh, my dears," the woman said. "You must come in, poor children. I am Aunty Em. Go straight through to the back of the warehouse, please. There is a dining area."

We thanked her and went inside.

Justin muttered to me, "Circus caravan?"

"I don't think well under pressure, all right?"

"Your head is full of kelp."

The warehouse was filled with more statues—people in all different poses, wearing all different outfits and with different expressions on their faces. I was thinking you'd have to have a pretty huge garden to fit even one of these statues, because they were all life-size. But mostly, I was thinking about food.

Go ahead, call me an idiot for walking into a strange lady's shop like that just because I was hungry, but I do impulsive stuff sometimes. Plus, you've never smelled Aunty Em's burgers. The aroma was like laughing gas in the dentist's chair—it made everything else go away. I barely noticed Grover's nervous whimpers, or the way the statues' eyes seemed to follow me, or the fact that Aunty Em had locked the door behind us.

All I cared about was finding the dining area. And sure enough, there it was at the back of the warehouse, a fast-food counter with a grill, a soda fountain, a pretzel heater, and a nacho cheese dispenser. Everything you could want, plus a few steel picnic tables out front.

"Please, sit down," Aunty Em said.

"Thanks," I said.

"Um," Grover said reluctantly, "we don't have any money, ma'am."

Aunty Em said, "No, no, children. No money. This is a special case, yes? It is my treat, for such nice orphans."

"Thank you, ma'am," Justin said.

Aunty Em stiffened, as if Justin had done something wrong, but then the old woman relaxed just as quickly, so I figured it must've been my imagination.

"Quite all right, Justin," she said. "You have such handsome gray eyes, child."

Only later did I wonder how she knew Justin's name, even though we had never introduced ourselves. Our hostess disappeared behind the snack counter and started cooking. Before we knew it, she'd brought us plastic trays heaped with double cheeseburgers, vanilla shakes, and XXL servings of French fries. I was halfway through my burger before I remembered to breathe.

Justin slurped his shake. Grover picked at the fries, and eyed the tray's waxed paper liner as if he might go for that, but he still looked too nervous to eat.

"What's that hissing noise?" he asked.

I listened, but didn't hear anything. I looked at Justin with a questioning look and he shook his head, he didn't hear anything either.

"Hissing?" Aunty Em asked. "Perhaps you hear the deep-fryer oil. You have keen ears, Grover."

"I take vitamins. For my ears."

"That's admirable," she said. "But please, relax."

Aunt Em ate nothing. She hadn't taken off her head dress, even to cook, and now she sat forward and interlaced her fingers and watched us eat. It was a little unsettling, having someone stare at me when I couldn't see her face, but I was feeling satisfied after the burger, and a little sleepy, but every few seconds my senses would react like as if I was in water once again, keeping me awake. I found this strange but in the mean time I made small talk with Aunty Em.

"So, you sell gnomes," I said, trying to sound interested.

"Oh, yes," Aunty Em said. "And animals. And people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."

"A lot of business on this road?"

"Not so much, no. Since the highway was built... most cars, they do not go this way now. I must cherish every customer I get."

My neck tingled, as if somebody else was looking at me. I turned, but it was just a statue of a young girl holding an Easter basket. The detail was incredible, much better than you see in most garden statues. But something was wrong with her face. It looked as if she were startled, or even terrified.

My focus flickered. Things blurred and then got clear, then like I said it flickered, going back and forth between what I was seeing and something I was supposed to see. I blinked several times to get things back to normal.

"Ah," Aunty Em said sadly. "You notice some of my creations do not turn out well. They are marred. They do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face."

"You make these statues yourself?" I asked.

"Oh, yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters to help me in the business, but they have passed on, and Aunty Em is alone. I have only my statues. This is why I make them, you see. They are my company." The sadness in her voice sounded so deep and so real that I couldn't help feeling sorry for her.

Then, my brain felt as if was trying to tell me something, but it just couldn't. Like trying to get AM on a radio that only plays FM, nothing but static or somethings nothing at all. But it seemed as if Justin still maintained a working brain.

Justin had stopped eating. He sat forward and said, "Two sisters?"

"It's a terrible story," Aunty Em said. "Not one for children, really. You see, Justin, a bad woman was jealous of me, long ago, when I was young. I had a... a boyfriend, you know, and this bad woman was determined to break us apart. She caused a terrible accident. My sisters stayed by me. They shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but eventually they passed on. They faded away. I alone have survived, but at a price. Such a price."

I wasn't sure what she meant, but I felt bad for her. My eyelids kept getting heavier, my full stomach making me sleepy. Poor old lady. Who would want to hurt somebody so nice? My brain... I heard static, again.

"Andrea?" Justin was shaking me to get my attention. "Maybe we should go. I mean, the ringmaster will be waiting."

He sounded tense. And I knew why, but I couldn't form much thoughts outside of the nice lady who feed us, it was as if I was under a spell. Grover was eating the waxed paper off the tray now, but if Aunty Em found that strange, she didn't say anything.

"Such handsome gray eyes," Aunty Em told Justin again. "My, yes, it has been a long time since I've seen gray eyes like those."

She reached out as if to stroke Justin's cheek, but Justin stood up abruptly. "We really should go."

"Yes!" Grover swallowed his waxed paper and stood up. "The ringmaster is waiting! Right!"

I didn't want to leave. I felt full and content. Aunty Em was so nice. I wanted to stay with her a while. _No! I want to leave, _those thoughts shocked me and I was about to act upon them. Then, I ignored them and turned back to Aunty Em. My focus flickered.

"Please, dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I so rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"

"A pose?" Justin asked warily.

"A photograph. I will use it to model a new statue set. Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves children."

Justin shifted his weight from foot to foot. "I don't think we can, ma'am. Come on, Andrea—"

"Sure we can," I said as if in a trance. I was irritated with Justin for being so bossy, so rude to an old lady who'd just fed us for free. "It's just a photo, Justin. What's the harm?"

"Yes, Justin," the woman purred. "No harm."

I could tell Justin didn't like it, but he allowed Aunty Em to lead us back out the front door, into the garden of statues. But he kept a firm grip on my arm, as if to keep me from wandering off. Aunty Em directed us to a park bench next to the stone satyr.

"Now," she said, "I'll just position you correctly. The young girl in the middle, I think, and the two young gentlemen on either side."

"Not much light for a photo," I remarked getting in between Justin and Grover, static.

"Oh, enough," Aunty Em said. "Enough for us to see each other, yes?"

"Where's your camera?" Grover asked.

Aunty Em stepped back, as if to admire the shot. "Now, the face is the most difficult. Can you smile for me please, everyone? A large smile?"

Grover glanced at the cement satyr next to him, and mumbled, "That sure does look like Uncle Ferdinand."

"Grover," Aunty Em chastised, "look this way, dear."

She still had no camera in her hands.

"Andrea—" Justin said.

This time both the flickering and static started, my brain broke through a little bit. Some instinct warned me to listen to Justin, but I was fighting the sleepy feeling, the comfortable lull that came from the food and the old lady's voice. The flickering had stopped. The static was silent.

"I will just be a moment," Aunty Em said. "You know, I can't see you very well in this cursed veil..."

"Andrea, something's wrong," Justin insisted, but I didn't really hear him.

"Wrong?" Aunty Em said, reaching up to undo the wrap around her head. "Not at all, dear. I have such noble company tonight. What could be wrong?"

"That _is _Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover gasped.

"Look away from her!" Justin shouted. He whipped his Yankees cap onto his head and vanished. His invisible hands pushed Grover and me both off the bench. I was on the ground, looking at Aunt Em's sandaled feet. I could hear Grover scrambling off in one direction, Justin in another. But I was too dazed to move.

Then I heard a strange, rasping sound above me. My eyes rose to Aunty Em's hands, which had turned gnarled and warty, with sharp bronze talons for fingernails. I almost looked higher, but somewhere off to my left Justin screamed, "No! Don't!"

More rasping—the sound of tiny snakes, right above me, from ... from about where Aunty Em's head would be. Static sounded.

"Run!" Grover bleated. I heard him racing across the gravel, yelling, "_Maia_!" to kick-start his flying sneakers.

I couldn't move. I stared at Aunty Em's gnarled claws, and tried to fight the groggy trance the old woman had put me in. My focus starting flickering rapidly.

"Such a pity to destroy a beautiful young face," she told me soothingly. "Stay with me, Andrea. All you have to do is look up."

I fought the urge to obey. Instead I looked to one side and saw one of those glass spheres people put in gardens— a gazing ball. I could see Aunty Em's dark reflection in the orange glass; her headdress was gone, revealing her face as a shimmering pale circle. Her hair was moving, writhing like serpents.

Aunty Em.

Aunty "M."

Finally focus picked where they would stay, my senses turned on and I was aware of everything around me. My brain had yet to turn on and command me what to do.

How could I have been so stupid? Think, I told myself. How did Medusa die in the myth?

But I couldn't think. Something told me that in the myth Medusa had been asleep when she was attacked by Perseus. She wasn't anywhere near asleep now. If she wanted, she could take those talons right now and rake open my face.

"The Gray-Eyed One did this to me, Andrea," Medusa said, and she didn't sound anything like a monster. Her voice invited me to look up, to sympathize with a poor old grandmother. "Justin's mother, the cursed Athena, turned me from a beautiful woman into this."

"Don't listen to her!" Justin's voice shouted, somewhere in the statuary. "Run, Andrea!"

"Silence!" Medusa snarled. Then her voice modulated back to a comforting purr. "You see why I must destroy the boy, Andrea. He is my enemy's son. I shall crush his statue to dust. But you, dear Andrea, you need not suffer."

"Don't hurt him," I whispered. I tried to make my legs move.

"Do you really want to help the gods?" Medusa asked. "Do you understand what awaits you on this foolish quest, Andrea? What will happen if you reach the Underworld? Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue. Less pain. Less pain."

"Andrea!" Behind me, I heard a buzzing sound, like a two-hundred-pound hummingbird in a nosedive. Grover yelled, "Duck!"

I turned, and there he was in the night sky, flying in from twelve o'clock with his winged shoes fluttering, Grover, holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side. He was navigating by ears and nose alone.

"Duck!" he yelled again. "I'll get her!"

That finally jolted me into action. Knowing Grover, I was sure he'd miss Medusa and nail me. I dove to one side.

_Thwack!_

At first I figured it was the sound of Grover hitting a tree. Then Medusa roared with rage.

"You miserable satyr," she snarled. "I'll add you to my collection!"

"That was for Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover yelled back.

I scrambled away and hid in the statuary while Grover swooped down for another pass.

_Ker-whack!_

"Arrgh!" Medusa yelled, her snake-hair hissing and spitting.

Right next to me, Justin's voice said, "Andrea!"

I jumped so high my feet nearly cleared a garden gnome. "Jeez! Don't do that!"

Justin took off his Yankees cap and became visible. Then, He pulled me behind a couple of statures, "You have to cut her head off."

"What? Are you crazy? Let's get Grover and get out of here."

"Medusa is a menace. She's evil. I'd kill her myself, but..." Justin swallowed, as if he were about to make a difficult admission. "But you've got the better weapon. Besides, I'd never get close to her. She'd slice me to bits because of my mother. You—you've got a chance."

"What? I can't—"

"Look, do you want her turning more innocent people into statues?"

He pointed to a pair of statue lovers, a man and a woman with their arms around each other, turned to stone by the monster. Justin grabbed a green gazing ball from a nearby pedestal.

"A polished shield would be better." He studied the sphere critically. "The convexity will cause some distortion. The reflection's size should be off by a factor of—"

He's rambling faded. My brain turned on. I formed a plan and took the gazing ball in my hand, "I got it, just look at her in the glass. _Never _look at her directly."

"Hey, guys!" Grover yelled somewhere above us. "I think she's unconscious!"

_"Roooaaarrr!"_

"Maybe not," Grover corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch.

"Hurry," Justin told me. "Grover's got a great nose, but he'll eventually crash."

I clasped my hand on the bracelet and removed it from my arm. The bronze blade of Riptide elongated in my hand. I followed the hissing and spitting sounds of Medusa's hair. I kept my eyes locked on the gazing ball so I would only glimpse Medusa's reflection, not the real thing. Then, in the green tinted glass, I saw her.

Grover was coming in for another turn at bat, but this time he flew a little too low. Medusa grabbed the stick and pulled him off course. He tumbled through the air and crashed into the arms of a stone grizzly bear with a painful "Ummphh!"

Medusa was about to lunge at him when I yelled, "Leave him ALONE!"

I advanced on her, which wasn't easy, holding a sword and a glass ball. If she charged, I'd have a hard time defending myself. But she let me approach—twenty feet, ten feet. I could see the reflection of her face now. Surely it wasn't really _that _ugly. The green swirls of the gazing ball must be distorting it, making it look worse. Then again...

"You wouldn't harm an old woman, Andrea," she crooned. "I know you wouldn't."

I just stared at her reflection, _You're not a old woman, You're a Monster. _I stood rooted in my place.

From the cement grizzly, Grover moaned, "Andrea, don't listen to her!"

Medusa cackled. "Too late."

She lunged at me with her talons. I smiled, "Got ya."

I slashed up with my sword, heard a sickening _shlock!, _then a hiss like wind rushing out of a cavern—the sound of a monster disintegrating. Something fell to the ground next to my foot. I could feel warm ooze soaking into my sock, little dying snake heads tugging at my shoelaces.

"Oh, yuck," Grover said. His eyes were still tightly closed, but I guess he could hear the thing gurgling and steaming. "Mega-yuck."

Justin came up next to me, his eyes fixed on the sky. He was holding Medusa's black veil. He said, "Don't move."

Very, very carefully, without looking down, he knelt and draped the monster's head in black cloth, then picked it up. It was still dripping green juice.

"Are you okay?" he asked me, his voice trembling.

"Yeah," I decided. "Why didn't... why didn't the head evaporate?"

"Once you sever it, it becomes a spoil of war," he said. "Same as your minotaur horn. But don't unwrap the head. It can still petrify you."

Grover moaned as he climbed down from the grizzly statue. He had a big welt on his forehead. His green rasta cap hung from one of his little goat horns, and his fake feet had been knocked off his hooves. The magic sneakers were flying aimlessly around his head.

"The Red Baron," I said. "Good job, Grove."

He managed a bashful grin. "That really was _not _fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? _Not _fun."

"Really? I thought that would've been the highlight of your day." I said with a smirk as my sword returned to a bracelet. He snatched his shoes out of the air. Together, the three of us stumbled back to the warehouse.

We found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa's head. We plopped it on the table where we'd eaten dinner and sat around it, too exhausted to speak.

Finally I said, "So we have Athena to thank for this monster?"

Justin flashed me an irritated look. "Your dad, actually. Don't you remember? Medusa was Poseidon's girlfriend. They decided to meet in my mother's temple. That's why Athena turned her into a monster. Medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. That's why Medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you as a nice statue. She's still sweet on your dad. You probably reminded her of him."

"It's not _my _fault we met Medusa."

Justin straightened. In a bad imitation of my voice, he said: "'It's just a photo, Justin. What's the harm?'"

I glanced at him, "You're impossible."

"You're insufferable."

"You're—"

"Hey!" Grover interrupted. "You two are giving me a migraine, and satyrs don't even _get _migraines. What are we going to do with the head?"

I stared at the thing. One little snake was hanging out of a hole in the plastic. The words printed on the side of the bag said: WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS!

I was angry, not just with Justin or his mom, but with all the gods for this whole quest, for getting us blown off the road and in two major fights the very first day out from camp. At this rate, we'd never make it to L.A. alive, much less before the summer solstice.

What had Medusa said?

_Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue._

I got up. "I'll be back."

"Andrea," Justin called after me. "What are you—"

I searched the back of the warehouse until I found Medusa's office. Her account book showed her six most recent sales, all shipments to the Underworld to decorate Hades and Persephone's garden. According to one freight bill, the Underworld's billing address was DOA Recording Studios, West Hollywood, California. I folded up the bill and stuffed it in my pocket.

In the cash register I found twenty dollars, a few golden drachmas, and some packing slips for Hermes Overnight Express, each with a little leather bag attached for coins. I rummaged around the rest of the office until I found the right-size box. I went back to the picnic table, packed up Medusa's head, and filled out a delivery slip:

_The Gods_

_Mount Olympus_

_600th Floor,_

_Empire State Building_

_New York, NY_

_XOXO,_

_ANDREA JACKSON._

"They're not going to like that," Grover warned. "They'll think you're impertinent."

I poured some golden drachmas in the pouch. As soon as I closed it, there was a sound like a cash register. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a _pop!_

"I _am _impertinent and maybe a _tiny _bit crazy," I said.

I looked at Justin, daring him to criticize. He didn't. He seemed resigned to the fact that I had a major talent for ticking off the gods. "Come on," he muttered. "We need a new plan."

He turned away, but that didn't hide the amused smile forming on his face.


	13. Chapter 13

**I updated this pretty fast. I am on a roll.**

**Anyway, Thanks for all the reviews and enjoy this chapter.**

* * *

We were pretty miserable that night. We camped out in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a marshy clearing that local kids had obviously been using for parties. The ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers.

We'd taken some food and blankets from Aunty Em's, but we didn't dare light a fire to dry our damp clothes. The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for one day. We didn't want to attract anything else

We decided to sleep in shifts. I volunteered to take first watch. Justin curled up on the blankets and was snoring as soon as his head hit the ground. Well, I guess I wasn't going to be able to talk about why he was so rough with me back at Aunty Em's.

Grover fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a tree, put his back to the trunk, and stared at the night sky.

"Go ahead and sleep," I told him. "I'll wake you when it's your turn or if anything happens."

He nodded, but still didn't close his eyes. "It makes me sad, Andrea."

"What does? The fact that you signed up for this stupid quest?"

"No. _This _makes me sad." He pointed at all the garbage on the ground. "And the sky. You can't even see the stars. They've polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr."

I looked up at the tree he was in, "I guess."

He glared at me. "Only a human wouldn't be. Your species is clogging up the world so fast ... ah, never mind. It's useless to lecture a human. At the rate things are going, I'll never find Pan."

"Pam? Like the cooking spray?"

"Pan!" he cried indignantly. "P-A-N. The great god Pan! What do you think I want a searcher's license for?"

"Sorry! I just heard you wrong."

A strange breeze rustled through the clearing, temporarily overpowering the stink of trash and muck. It brought the smell of berries and wildflowers and clean rain water, things that might've once been in these woods. Suddenly I was nostalgic for something I'd never known and sighed a bittersweet sigh.

"Tell me about the search," I said.

Grover looked at me cautiously, as if he were afraid I was just making fun.

"The God of Wild Places disappeared two thousand years ago," he told me. "A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a mysterious voice crying out from the shore, 'Tell them that the great god Pan has died!' When humans heard the news, they believed it. They've been pillaging Pan's kingdom ever since. But for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild places of the earth. We refuse to believe that he died. In every generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden, and wake him from his sleep."

"And you want to be a searcher."

"It's my life's dream," he said. "My father was a searcher. And my Uncle Ferdinand ... the statue you saw back there—"

"I'm sorry about what happened to him."

Grover shook his head. "Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad. But I'll succeed. I'll be the first searcher to return alive."

"The first_?"_

Grover took his reed pipes out of his pocket. "No searcher has ever come back. Once they set out, they disappear. They're never seen alive again."

"Not once in two thousand years?"

"No."

"And your dad? You have no idea what happened to him?"

"None."

"But you still want to go," I said, amazed. "Why do you think you can find Pan?"

"I have to believe that, Andrea. Every searcher does. It's the only thing that keeps us from despair when we look at what humans have done to the world. I have to believe Pan can still be awakened."

"What makes you think he wants to be found?"

"Of course, he does," Grover looked insulted and outraged. "He loved the wild and would never abandon it."

"Then how come he's still missing? Mrs. Dodds seems _hesitant _to abandon me and well... Grover?"

Grover stayed silent.

"Don't listen to me, I am just dubious."

I stared at the orange haze of the sky and tried to understand how Grover could pursue a dream that seemed so hopeless. Then again, was I any better?

"How are we going to get into the Underworld?" I asked him. "I mean, what chance do we have against a god?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But back at Medusa's, when you were searching her office? Justin was telling me—"

"Oh, I forgot. Justin will have a plan all figured out."

I was still bitter about his plan from capture the flag.

"Don't be so hard on him, Andrea. He's had a tough life, but he's a good person. After all, he forgave me..." His voice faltered.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Forgave you for what?"

Suddenly, Grover seemed very interested in playing notes on his pipes.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Your first keeper job was five years ago. Justin has been at camp five years. He wasn't ... I mean, your first assignment that went wrong—"

"I can't talk about it," Grover said, and his quivering lower lip suggested he'd start crying if I pressed him. "But as I was saying, back at Medusa's, Justin and I agreed there's something strange going on with this quest. Some thing isn't what it seems."

"Well, duh. I was framed for stealing a thunder bolt."

"That's not what I mean," Grover said. "The Fur—The Kindly Ones were sort of holding back. Like Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy ... why did she wait so long to try to kill you? Then on the bus, they just weren't as aggressive as they could've been."

I thought about it, he was right. I've read stories about the Furies, without mercy, the Furies would punish all crime including the breaking of rules  
considering all aspects of society. I understand that they thought that I stole the Master Bolt, but Grover was suggesting something else.

"What are you saying?"

"They were screeching at us: 'Where is it? Where?'"

"Maybe they were asking about me," I said trying to make sense of what Grover was telling me.

"Maybe ... but Justin and I, we both got the feeling they weren't asking about a person. They said 'Where is _it_?' They seemed to be asking about an object."

"That doesn't make sense." I said, I didn't get it. Where they asking for the bolt?

I know. But if we've misunderstood something about this quest, and we only have nine days to find the master bolt..." He looked at me like he was hoping for answers, but I didn't have any.

I thought about what Medusa had said: I was being used by the gods. What lay ahead of me was worse than petrification. "I haven't been straight with you," I told Grover. "I don't care about the master bolt. I agreed to go to the Underworld so I could bring back my mother."

Grover blew a soft note on his pipes. "I know that, Andrea. But are you sure that's the only reason?"

"I'm not doing it to help my father. He doesn't care about me. I don't care about him."

Grover gazed down from his tree branch. "Look, Andrea, I'm not as smart as Justin. I'm not as brave as you. But I'm pretty good at reading emotions. You're glad your dad is alive. You feel good that he's claimed you, and part of you wants to make him proud. That's why you mailed Medusa's head to Olympus. You wanted him to notice what you'd done."

"Actually I mailed the head to Olympus because I wanted to make a statement."

"What statement?"

"It's not the time to lose one's head."

_Zeus._

"And your sure you not doing this to help your father?"

I shot Grover and annoyed look, "Yes."

I was lying. I cared about my father more than I let on, after all he is my father. And Grover knew it.

Grover pulled his feet up onto the branch. "Okay, Andrea. Whatever."

"Besides, I haven't done anything worth bragging about. We barely got out of New York and we're stuck here with no money and no way west."

Grover looked at the night sky, like he was thinking about that problem. "How about _I _take first watch, huh? You get some sleep."

I wanted to protest, but he started to play Mozart, soft and sweet, and I turned away, my eyes stinging. After a few bars of Piano Concerto no. 12, I was asleep. In my dreams, I stood in a dark cavern before a gaping pit.

Gray mist creatures churned all around me, whispering rags of smoke that I somehow knew were the spirits of the dead. They tugged at my clothes, trying to pull me back, but I felt compelled to walk forward to the very edge of the chasm. Looking down made me dizzy.

The pit yawned so wide and was so completely black, I knew it must be bottomless. Yet I had a feeling that something was trying to rise from the abyss, something huge and evil.

_The little heroine, _an amused voice echoed far down in the darkness. _Too weak, too young, but perhaps you will do._

The voice felt ancient—cold and heavy. It wrapped around me like sheets of lead.

_They have misled you, girl, _it said. _Barter with me. I will give you what you want._

A shimmering image hovered over the void: my mother, frozen at the moment she'd dissolved in a shower of gold. Her face was distorted with pain, as if the Minotaur were still squeezing her neck. Her eyes looked directly at me, pleading: _Go!_

I tried to cry out, but my voice wouldn't work. Cold laughter echoed from the chasm. An invisible force pulled me forward. It would drag me into the pit unless I stood firm.

_Help me rise, girl. _The voice became hungrier. _Bring me the bolt. Strike a blow against the treacherous gods!_

The spirits of the dead whispered around me, _No! Wake!_

The image of my mother began to fade. The thing in the pit tightened its unseen grip around me. I realized it wasn't interested in pulling me in. It was using me to pull itself _out._

_Good, _it murmured. _Good._

_Wake! _the dead whispered. _Wake!_

My eyes opened, and it was daylight.

"Well," Justin said, "the zombie lives."

I was trembling from the dream. I could still feel a grip around my chest. "How long was I asleep?"

"Long enough for me to cook breakfast." Justin tossed me a bag of nacho-flavored corn chips from Aunty Em's snack bar.

"Wow, you're an amazing cook." I said waving the bag of chips back and forth.

Ignoring me, he continued, "And Grover went exploring. Look, he found a friend."

My eyes had trouble focusing. Grover was sitting cross-legged on a blanket with something fuzzy in his lap, a dirty, unnaturally pink stuffed animal. No. It wasn't a stuffed animal. It was a pink poodle.

Poor poodle, pink is a horrible color. I shuddered at the thought of being pink.

The poodle yapped at me suspiciously. Grover said, "No, she's not."

I blinked. "Are you ... talking to the poodle?"

"This poodle," Grover said, "is our ticket west. Be nice to him."

"Him?"  I muttered to myself in spanish before asking, "you can talk to animals?"

Grover ignored the question. "Andrea, meet Gladiola. Gladiola, Andrea."

I stared at Justin, figuring he'd crack up at this practical joke they were playing on me, but he looked deadly serious. I just stared at them.

"Andrea," Justin said. "I said hello to the poodle. You say hello to the poodle."

I said hello to the poodle.

Grover explained that he'd come across Gladiola in the woods and they'd struck up a conversation. The poodle had run away from a rich local family, who'd posted a $200 reward for his return. Gladiola didn't really want to go back to his family, but he was willing to if it meant helping Grover.

"How does Gladiola know about the reward?" I asked.

"He read the signs," Grover said. "Duh."

"Of course. Silly me for not realising that animals can read better than us," I said pointing at Justin and myself with a joking smile.

"So we turn in Gladiola," Justin explained in his best strategy voice, "we get money, and we buy tickets to Los Angeles. Simple."

I thought about my dream—the whispering voices of the dead, the thing in the chasm, and my mother's face, shimmering as it dissolved into gold. All that might be waiting for me in the West.

"Not another bus," I said warily.

"No," Justin agreed.

He pointed downhill, toward train tracks I hadn't been able to see last night in the dark. "There's an Amtrak station half a mile that way. According to Gladiola, the west bound train leaves at noon."

* * *

**P.S. YourWeirdILikeYou when I read your review I just stared, then laughed. **


	14. Chapter 14

**Thank you for all the reviews and for reading this story.**

**ENJOY!**

* * *

We spent two days on the Amtrak train, heading west through hills, over rivers, past amber waves of grain. We weren't attacked once, but I didn't relax. I felt that we were traveling around in a display case, being watched from above and maybe from below, that something was waiting for the right opportunity.

I tried to keep a low profile because my name and picture were splattered over the front pages of several East Coast newspapers. The _Trenton Register-News _showed a photo taken by a tourist as I got off the Greyhound bus. I had a wild look in my eyes. My sword was a metallic blur in my hands. It might've been a baseball bat or a lacrosse stick.

The picture's caption read:

_Twelve-year-old Andrea Jackson, wanted for questioning in the Long Island disappearance of her mother two weeks ago, is shown here fleeing from the bus where she accosted several elderly female passengers._

_The bus exploded on an east New Jersey roadside shortly after Jackson fled the scene. Based on eyewitness accounts, police believe the girl may be traveling with two teenage accomplices. Her stepfather, Gabe Ugliano, has offered a cash reward for information leading to her capture._

"Don't worry," Justin told me. "Mortal police could never find us." But he didn't sound so sure. So I put my hair up in a braid, 'borrowed' someone's glasses that now had no lenses.

The guy would probably reach in his feminine man bag for his reading glasses and just not find them there, along with his book. If I was a going to be a outlaw might as well commit one of the crimes I am being charged with, theft. Besides it's just $10 reading glasses and the most boring book on the planet about calculus.

The rest of the day I spent alternately pacing the length of the train (because I had a really hard time sitting still), reading about calculus, or looking out the windows.

Once, I spotted a family of centaurs galloping across a wheat field, bows at the ready, as they hunted lunch. The little boy centaur, who was the size of a second-grader on a pony, caught my eye and waved. I gave him a small smile and waved back.

I looked around the passenger car, but nobody else had noticed. The adult riders all had their faces buried in laptop computers or magazines. _Clueless mortals._

Another time, toward evening, I saw something huge moving through the woods. I could've sworn it was a lion and it was the size of a Hummer. Its fur glinted gold in the evening light.

The Nemean Lion. It was one of the beast Heracles fought in his twelve labors. It was a monster as well, so I kept my eye on it before it leaped through the trees and was gone.

Our reward money for returning Gladiola the poodle had only been enough to purchase tickets as far as Denver. We couldn't get berths in the sleeper car, so we dozed in our seats. Grover kept snoring and bleating, waking me up and when I did I usually woke up on Justin's shoulder. Once, he shuffled around and his fake foot fell off. Justin and I had to stick it back on before any of the other passengers noticed.

"So," Justin asked me, once we'd gotten Grover's sneaker readjusted. "Who wants your help?"

"What do you mean?"

"When you were asleep just now, you mumbled, 'I won't help you.' Who were you dreaming about?"

I was reluctant to say anything. It was the second time I'd dreamed about the evil voice from the pit. In the end I decided to tell him.

Justin was quiet for a long time. "That doesn't sound like Hades. He always appears on a black throne, and he never laughs."

"He offered my mother in trade... but..."

"I guess ... if he meant, 'Help me rise from the Underworld.' If he wants war with the Olympians. But why ask you to bring him the master bolt if he already has it?"

I shook my head, wishing I knew the answer. I thought about what Grover had told me, that the Furies on the bus seemed to have been looking for something.

_Where is it? Where?_

Maybe Grover sensed my emotions. He snorted in his sleep, muttered something about vegetables, and turned his head.

_Hm...mabye I 'stole' something from him too? Maybe the furies are delusional? Maybe Hades's senile? Maybe he just hates me? Maybe he wants the secret sauce that I put on my snails that I use for munching?_

Justin readjusted Grover's cap so it covered his horns. "Andrea, you can't barter with Hades. You know that, right? He's deceitful, heartless, and greedy. I don't care if his Kindly Ones weren't as aggressive this time—"

"This time?" I asked. "You mean you've run into them before?"

His hand crept up to his necklace. He fingered a glazed white bead painted with the image of a pine tree, one of his clay end-of-summer tokens. "Let's just say I've got no love for the Lord of the Dead-"

"Really? Because I honestly think he's would be a very charming and cheerful god with his dead souls and the underworld. I mean he only sent a _few_ monsters to kill me."

"- You can't be tempted to make a deal for your mom."

I scoffed, "What would you do if it was your dad?"

"That's easy," he said. "I'd leave him to rot."

I have to admit that shocked me.

"Why?"

Justin's gray eyes fixed on me. He wore the same expression he'd worn in the woods at camp, the moment he drew his sword against the hellhound.

"My dad's resented me since the day I was born, Andrea," he said. "He never wanted a kid. When he got me, he asked Athena to take me back and raise me on Olympus because he was too busy with his work. She wasn't happy about that. She told him heroes had to be raised by their mortal parent."

"Go on."

"I appeared on my father's doorstep, in a golden cradle, carried down from Olympus by Zephyr the West Wind. You'd think my dad would remember that as a miracle, right? Like, maybe he'd take some digital photos or something. But he always talked about my arrival as if it were the most inconvenient thing that had ever happened to him. When I was five he got married and totally forgot about Athena. He got a 'regular' mortal wife, and had two 'regular' mortal kids, and tried to pretend I didn't exist."

I stared out the train window. The lights of a sleeping town were drifting by. I wanted to make Justin feel better, but I didn't know how.

"My mom married a really awful guy," I told him. "Grover said she did it to protect me, to hide me in the scent of a human family. Maybe that's what your dad was thinking. He can just not care with you, no parent can hate their child."

Justin kept messing with his necklace. He was pinching the gold college ring that hung with the beads. It occurred to me that the ring must be his father's. I wondered why he wore it if he hated him _so_ much. Jeez, he's just like me with my dad he cares about him more than he let's on.

"He doesn't care about me," he insisted. "His wife—my stepmom—treated me like a freak. She wouldn't let me play with her children. My dad went along with her. Whenever something dangerous happened—you know, something with monsters—they would both look at me resentfully, like, 'How dare you put our family at risk.' Finally, I took the hint. I wasn't wanted. I ran away."

"How old were you?"

"Same age as when I started camp. Seven."

I looked at Justin with new found respect, "But ... you couldn't have gotten all the way to Half-Blood Hill by yourself."

"Not alone, no. Athena watched over me, guided me toward help. I made a couple of unexpected friends who took care of me, for a short time, anyway."

I wanted to ask what happened, but Justin seemed lost in sad memories.

"Justin?" I called for his attention and he turned to me with sad eyes. "It's not only children who grow. Parents do too."

I gazed out the train windows as the dark fields of Ohio raced by and listened to the sound of Grover snoring. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Justin staring at me, deep in thought.

* * *

Toward the end of our second day on the train, June 13, eight days before the summer solstice, we passed through some golden hills and over the Mississippi River into St. Louis. Justin craned his neck to see the Gateway Arch, which looked like a huge shopping bag handle stuck on the city.

"I want to do that," he sighed.

"Do what?"

"Build something like that. You ever see the Parthenon, Andrea?"

"In pictures."

"Someday, I'm going to see it in person. I'm going to build the greatest monument to the gods, ever. Something that'll last a thousand years."

I laughed. "You? An architect?"

I don't know why, but I found it funny. Just the idea of Justin trying to sit quietly and draw all day.

His neck turned red. "Yes, an architect. Athena expects her children to create things, not just tear them down, like a certain god of earthquakes I could mention."

I watched the churning brown water of the Mississippi below.

"Sorry," Justin said. "That was mean."

"It's okay, I mean, when was the last time Athena and Poseidon actually cooperated?"

Justin had to think about it. "I guess ... the chariot," he said tentatively. "My mom invented it, but Poseidon created horses out of the crests of waves. So they had to work together to make it complete."

"You know that question was rhetorical. Right?"

We rode into the city, Justin watching as the Arch disappeared behind a hotel.

"Maybe we could cooperate," he said at last.

I looked at him with scandalized expression on my face and gasped, "_Us? _Work together? YOU WISH!"

He gave me a small smile then turned back to the giant handle.

We pulled into the Amtrak station downtown. The intercom told us we'd have a three-hour layover before departing for Denver. Grover stretched. Before he was even fully awake, he said, "Food."

"Come on, goat boy," Justin said. "Sightseeing."

_Goat boy? Why not donkey boy? Or for short donnie or don-don. Heh. That rhymes like bon bon. Wait... PAY ATTENTION ANDREA!_

"Sightseeing?"

"The Gateway Arch," he said. "This may be my only chance to ride to the top. Are you coming or not?"

Grover and I exchanged looks. I wanted to say no, we should stay here. But Justin was set on the Gateway Arch and we shouldn't split up. Grover shrugged. "As long as there's a snack bar without monsters."

The Arch was about a mile from the train station. Late in the day the lines to get in weren't that long. We threaded our way through the underground museum, looking at covered wagons and other junk from the 1800s. It wasn't all that thrilling, but Justin kept telling us interesting facts about how the Arch was built.

I would have been complaining about learning about a building, but Grover kept passing me jelly beans, so I was okay. I kept looking around, though, at the other people in line.

"You smell anything?" I murmured to Grover, nervously readjusting the glasses I was wearing and fixing my pony-tail.

He took his nose out of the jelly-bean bag long enough to sniff. "Underground," he said distastefully. "Underground air always smells like monsters. Probably doesn't mean anything."

But something felt wrong to me. I had a feeling we shouldn't be here. So, I focused more on what Grover and I discussed earlier. Then I started think about the lightning bolt, then Hades, then Hades symbol of power. I forgot what it was, dang it.

"Guys," I said. "You know the gods' symbols of power?"

Justin had been in the middle of reading about the construction equipment used to build the Arch, but he looked over. "Yeah?"

"Well, Hade—"

Grover cleared his throat. "We're in a public place... You mean, our friend downstairs?"

"Really? Our friend downstairs?" I asked Grover. My response was a shrug.

"Yeah, sure. Our friend _way _downstairs. Doesn't he have a hat? The Helm of...D...D...Doom...No, that's not right...Dinosaurs...that's definitely wrong... Helm of Death..."

"You mean the Helm of Darkness," Justin said. "Yeah, that's his symbol of power. I saw it next to his seat during the winter solstice council meeting."

"He was there?" I asked.

He nodded. "It's the only time he's allowed to visit Olympus—the darkest day of the year. My invisibility hat is similar to it, but it's a lot more powerful, if what I've heard is true..."

"It allows him to become darkness," Grover confirmed. "He can melt into shadow or pass through walls. He can't be touched, or seen, or heard. And he can radiate fear so intense it can drive you insane or stop your heart. Why do you think all rational creatures fear the dark?"

"I like the dark."

"Your not rational," Justin deadpanned.

"Point taken."

We stayed silent for a second, before something hit me, "Would anyone try to steal it?"

Justin and Grover exchanged looks.

"Not likely." Justin said.

"Yeah," Grover continued. "If anyone got to close I imagine Had- our friend downstairs would have half the underworld after the culprit. Why?"

"No reason, just curious," I said. "Got any blue jelly beans left?"

I'd almost mastered my jumpy nerves when I saw the tiny little elevator car we were going to ride to the top of the Arch, and I knew I was in trouble. I hate confined places. They make me crazy. Well, more crazy than usual

We got shoehorned into the car with this big fat lady and her dog, a Chihuahua with a rhinestone collar. I figured maybe the dog was a seeing-eye Chihuahua, because none of the guards said a word about it. We started going up, inside the Arch. I'd never been in an elevator that went in a curve, and my stomach wasn't too happy about it.

"No parents?" the fat lady asked us.

She had beady eyes; pointy, coffee-stained teeth; a floppy denim hat, and a denim dress that bulged so much, she looked like a blue-jean blimp with a large head and too many chins.

"They're below," Justin told her. "Scared of heights."

"Oh, the poor darlings."

The Chihuahua growled. The woman said, "Now, now, Sonny. Behave." The dog had beady eyes like its owner, intelligent and vicious.

I said, "Sonny. Is that his name?"

"No," the lady told me.

She smiled, as if that cleared everything up. It didn't, my focus starting going haywire. I had to blink a couple of times for it to stop.

At the top of the Arch, the observation deck reminded me of a tin can with carpeting. Rows of tiny windows looked out over the city on one side and the river on the other. The view was okay, but if there's anything I like less than a confined space, it's a confined space six hundred feet in the air. I was ready to go pretty quick.

Justin kept talking about structural supports, and how he would've made the windows bigger, and designed a see-through floor. He probably could've stayed up there for hours, but luckily for me the park ranger announced that the observation deck would be closing in a few minutes.

Thank the gods, because Justin was obsessed! AND THAT WAS PUTING IT LIGHTLY!

Sorry... I had to get that out.

I steered Grover and Justin toward the exit, loaded them into the elevator, and I was about to get in myself when I realized there were already two other tourists inside. No room for me.

The park ranger said, "Next car, ma'am."

"We'll get out," Justin said. "We'll wait with you."

But that was going to mess everybody up and take even more time, so I said, "Thanks, but I'm a big girl. That means we can be apart for five, ten minutes without me doing something stupid or destroying the Gateway Arch."

The Park Ranger let out a little laugh. Still, Grover and Justin both looked nervous, but they let the elevator door slide shut. Their car disappeared down the ramp.

Now the only people left on the observation deck were me, a little boy with his parents, the park ranger, and the fat lady with her Chihuahua. I smiled uneasily at the fat lady. She smiled back, her forked tongue flickering between her teeth.

I did a double take, "She has a forked tongue."

Her 'Chihuahua' jumped down and started yapping at me.

"Now, now, Sonny," the lady said. "Does this look like a good time? We have all these nice people here."

"Doggie!" said the little boy. "Look, a doggie!"

His parents pulled him back and I crossed to block the family from my unknown company. The Chihuahua bared his teeth at me, foam dripping from his black lips.

"Lovely." I muttered.

"Well, son," the fat lady sighed. "If you insist."

Ice started forming in my stomach. "That 'Chihuahua' is your son?"

_"Chimera, _dear," the fat lady corrected. "Not a Chihuahua. It's an easy mistake to make."

She rolled up her denim sleeves, revealing that the skin of her arms was scaly and green. When she smiled, I saw that her teeth were fangs. The pupils of her eyes were sideways slits, like a reptile's. The Chihuahua barked louder, and with each bark, it grew. First to the size of a Doberman, then to a lion. The bark became a roar.

The little boy screamed. His parents pulled him back toward the exit, straight into the park ranger, who stood, paralyzed, gaping at the monster. I made sure to be between the mortals and the monster, gripping my bracelet, ready to attack or protect.

The Chimera was now so tall it's back rubbed against the roof. It had the head of a lion with a blood-caked mane, the body and hooves of a giant goat, and a serpent for a tail, a ten-foot-long diamondback growing right out of its shaggy behind. The rhinestone dog collar still hung around its neck, and the plate-sized dog tag was now easy to read: CHIMERA—RABID, FIRE-BREATHING, POISONOUS—IF FOUND, PLEASE CALL TARTARUS—EXT. 954.

Before I knew it Riptide was in my hands. I was ten feet away from the Chimera's bloody maw, and I knew that as soon as I moved, the creature would lunge. I carefully shifted my feet and took an improvised fighting stance.

The snake lady made a hissing noise that might've been laughter. "Be honored, Andrea Jackson. Lord Zeus rarely allows me to test a hero with one of my brood. For I am the Mother of Monsters, the terrible Echidna!"

I stared at her and magically I knew how to piss her off, "Isn't that a kind of anteater?"

She howled, her reptilian face turning brown and green with rage. "I hate it when people say that! I hate Australia! Naming that ridiculous animal after me. For that, Andrea Jackson, my son shall destroy you!"

The Chimera charged, its lion teeth gnashing. I managed to leap aside and dodge the bite. I moved closer to the family and the park ranger, who were all screaming now, trying to pry open the emergency exit doors. I couldn't let them get hurt.

I ran to the other side of the deck, and yelled, "Here, doggie, doggie, doggie!" The Chimera turned faster than I would've thought possible.

Before I could swing my sword, it opened its mouth, emitting a stench like the world's largest barbecue pit, and shot a column of flame straight at me. I dove through the explosion. The carpet burst into flames; the heat was so intense, it nearly seared off my eye brows.

Where I had been standing a moment before was a ragged hole in the side of the Arch, with melted metal steaming around the edges.

_Great_, I thought. _I just blow torched a national monument_. I looked at the Chimera, _but it was a team effort._

The next thing I thought was, _I now know something about the Gateway Arch that Justin doesn't. There was a terrorist attack at it today, it was happening right now and knowing the mist, by me._

Riptide was now a shining bronze blade in my hands, and as the Chimera turned, I slashed at its neck.

That was my fatal mistake. The blade sparked harmlessly off the dog collar. I tried to regain my balance, but I was so worried about defending myself against the fiery lion's mouth, I forgot about the serpent tail until it whipped around and sank its fangs into my calf.

My whole leg was on fire. I tried to jab Riptide into the Chimera's mouth, but the serpent tail wrapped around my ankles and pulled me off-balance, and my blade flew out of my hand, spinning out of the hole in the Arch and down toward the Mississippi River.

I managed to get to my feet, but I knew I had lost. But I stubbornly pulled out Nereus. I hoped for something outside of a dagger, I hoped that something would tell me how to weaponize Pegeen. Nothing.

I could feel deadly poison racing up to my chest. I remembered Chiron saying that Anaklusmos would always return to me, but there was no bracelet on my wrist. Maybe it had fallen too far away. Maybe it only returned when it was in bracelet form. I didn't know, and I wasn't going to live long enough to figure it out.

I backed into the hole in the wall and pulled out my dagger, but I did not want only to have my dagger at my use. The Chimera advanced, growling, smoke curling from its lips. The snake lady, Echidna, cackled. "They don't make heroes like they used to, eh, son?"

The monster growled. It seemed in no hurry to finish me off now that I was beaten. I held on to Nereus though, I had no intention of making the killing of me easy. I glanced at the park ranger and the family. The little boy was hiding behind his father's legs. I had to protect these people. I couldn't just ... leave them.

I tried to think, but my whole body was on fire. My head felt dizzy. I was facing a massive, fire-breathing monster and its mother. I doubled over in pain.

Yet, I wasn't scared. I refused to be scared. I stepped to the edge of the hole. Far, far below, the river glittered. I kept one eye on it.

"If you are the daughter of Poseidon," Echidna hissed, "you would not fear water. Jump, Andrea Jackson. Show me that water will not harm you. Jump and retrieve your sword. Prove your bloodline."

I hesitated, _the mortals..._

The Chimera's mouth glowed red, heating up for another blast.

"You have no faith," Echidna told me. "You do not trust the gods. I cannot blame you, little coward. Better you die now. The gods are faithless. The poison is in your heart."

I backed up and looked down at the water. I remembered the warm glow of my father's smile when I was a baby. He must have seen me. He must have visited me when I was in my cradle. I remembered the swirling green trident that had appeared above my head the night of capture the flag, when Poseidon had claimed me as his son.

_This isn't the sea, but it'll have to do._

I stood up straighter and turned to face Mrs. Anteater, "Your wrong. I am no coward. And even though they are hunting me, I do trust them, because my father is one."

"You are so quick to put faith in your father and that will be the death of you," Echidna rasped, and the Chimera sent a column of flame toward me. I jumped to the side.

"Try not to miss me to much, Chimera, Anteater." I said giving each a curt nod.

_Daddy, please help me, _I silently prayed.

I spread out my arms and fell backwards. My clothes on fire, poison coursing through my veins, I plummeted toward the river


	15. Chapter 15

**I am going try to update on the weekends as much as I can. Thanks PersephoneJackson123, fanofpjo , and Guest for reviewing (since you three are the _only ones_ who reviewed last chapter I wanted to make sure to mention you three).**

**Guest- I didn't think that she is dumber that Percy just sarcastic and forgetful of somethings (sigh)... she has her smart moments. Oh well, we all have our diffrenet views. And yes, she does need shock therapy. **

**And to those reading enjoy!**

* * *

I'd love to tell you I had some deep revelation on my way down, that I came to terms with my own mortality, laughed in the face of death, etcetera. The truth? I was thinking about calculus equations. Stupid calculus, no one likes you!

The river raced toward me at the speed of a truck. Wind ripped the breath from my lungs. Steeples and skyscrapers and bridges tumbled in and out of my vision. And then:_Flaaa-boooom!_

A whiteout of bubbles. I was falling slowly now, bubbles trickling up through my fingers. I settled on the river bottom soundlessly. A catfish the size of my stepfather lurched away into the gloom of mud. Clouds of silt and disgusting garbage—beer bottles, old shoes, plastic bags—swirled up all around me.

At that point, I realized a few things: first, I couldn't even feel the Chimera poison boiling in my veins anymore. I was alive, which was good. Because my dad saved me.

Second realization: I wasn't wet. I could feel the coolness of the water. I could see where the fire on my clothes had been quenched. But when I touched my own shirt, which had now been burnt into a crop top, it felt perfectly dry.

I looked at the garbage floating by and snatched an old cigarette lighter with an american flag printed on the sides. I flicked the lighter. It sparked. A tiny flame appeared, right there at the bottom of the Mississippi.

"No way," I said with a smile.

I grabbed a soggy hamburger wrapper out of the current and immediately the paper turned dry. I lit it with no problem. As soon as I let it go, the flames sputtered out. The wrapper turned back into a slimy rag. I grabbed the lighter along with a couple pieces of trash and stuffed it in my pocket.

_I'll hold on to the lighter and throw out the pieces of trash later. _

Then I finally realized the strangest thing last: I was breathing. I was underwater, and I was breathing normally. Being the daughter of Poseidon has its perks.

I stood up, thigh-deep in mud. My legs felt shaky. My hands trembled. I imagined a woman's voice, a voice that sounded a bit like my mother: _Andrea__, what do you say?_

"Thank you ... Daddy." Underwater, I sounded like I did on recordings, like a much older kid.

No response. As expected. Like I said this isn't the sea, but a river that practically in the middle of the country.

Just the dark drift of garbage downriver, the enormous catfish gliding by, the flash of sunset on the water's surface far above, turning everything the color of butterscotch.

I worried about the people on the top of the tower. But I doubted that anything would happen to them, I mean Zeus sent Echidna after me. And I doubted that Zeus wouldn't ever consider letting her out again if she killed a couple of helpless mortals. So nothing well happen to them, right?

_Fump-fump-fump._

A riverboat's paddlewheel churned above me, swirling the silt around. There, not five feet in front of me, was my sword, its gleaming bronze hilt sticking up in the mud. I heard that woman's voice again: _Andrea__, take the sword. Your father believes in you._

This time, I knew the voice wasn't in my head. I wasn't imagining it. Her words seemed to come from everywhere, rippling through the water like dolphin sonar.

"Where are you?" I called aloud.

Then, through the gloom, I saw her—a woman the color of the water, a ghost in the current, floating just above the sword. She had long billowing hair, and her eyes, barely visible, were green like mine. A lump formed in my throat. She looked like my mom. I said, "Who are you?"

_A messenger. Go to the beach in Santa Monica._

"What?"

_It is your father's will. Before you descend into the Underworld, you must go to Santa Monica. Please, Andrea, I cannot stay long. The river here is too foul for my presence._

There was so much I wanted to ask, the words jammed up in my throat.

_I cannot stay, brave one, _the woman said. She reached out, and I felt the current brush my face like a caress. _You must go to Santa Monica! And, Andrea, do not trust the gifts..._

Her voice faded.

"Gifts?" I asked confused.

She made one more attempt to speak, but the sound was gone. Her image melted away. If it was my mother, I had lost her again.

I felt like drowning myself. The only problem: I was immune to drowning.

_Your father believes in you, _she had said.

She'd also called me brave ... unless she was talking to the catfish. Speaking of the catfish, how can anything survive, much less live, in all this muck?

I waded toward Riptide and grabbed it by the hilt. The Chimera might still be up there with its snaky, fat mother, waiting to finish me off. At the very least, the mortal police would be arriving, trying to figure out who had blown a hole in the Arch. If they found me, they'd have some questions.

I clasped my bracelet onto my wrist. "Thank you, Dad," I said again to the dark water.

Then I kicked up through the muck and swam for the surface. I came ashore next to a floating McDonald's. I glared at it, remembering the many, _many_ wrappers I saw in the waters.

"STUPID RESTAURANT! You're polluting the river." I sneered at it as I walked past it into the crowd, after I cleared my pockets of trash.

A block away, every emergency vehicle in St. Louis was surrounding the Arch. Police helicopters circled overhead. The crowd of onlookers reminded me of Times Square on New Year's Eve.

A little girl said, "Mama! That pretty girl walked out of the river."

"That's nice, dear," her mother said, craning her neck to watch the ambulances.

"But she's dry!"

"That's nice, dear."

A news lady was talking for the camera: "Probably not a terrorist attack, we're told, but it's still very early in the investigation. The damage, as you can see, is very serious. We're trying to get to some of the survivors, to question them about eyewitness reports of someone falling from the Arch."

_Survivors. _I felt a surge of relief. Maybe the park ranger and that family made it out safely. I hoped Justin and Grover were okay.

I tried to look over the crowd to see what was going on inside the police line.

"... an adolescent girl," another reporter was saying. "Channel Five has learned that surveillance cameras show an adolescent girl going wild on the observation deck, somehow setting off this freak explosion. Hard to believe, John, but that's what we're hearing. Again, no confirmed fatalities …"

I backed away, trying to keep my head down and undoing my hair so it acted as a curtain around my face. I had to go a long way around the police perimeter. Uniformed officers and news reporters were everywhere.

I'd almost lost hope of ever finding Justin and Grover when a familiar voice bleated, "And-rrrea!"

I turned and got tackled by Grover's bear hug—or goat hug. He said, "We thought you'd gone to Hades the hard way!"

Justin stood behind him, trying to look angry, but even he seemed relieved to see me. "We can't leave you alone for five minutes! What happened?"

"I sort of fell."

"Andrea! Six hundred and thirty feet?"

I gave him a sly smile, after a second he returned it and scooped me into a hug. Behind us, a cop shouted, "Gangway!"

We broke apart and watched as the crowd parted, and a couple of paramedics hustled out, rolling a woman on a stretcher. I recognized her immediately as the mother of the little boy who'd been on the observation deck. She was saying, "And then this huge dog, this huge fire-breathing Chihuahua—"

"Okay, ma'am," the paramedic said. "Just calm down. Your family is fine. The medication is starting to kick in."

"I'm not crazy! This girl jumped out of the hole and the monster disappeared." Then she saw me. "There she is! That's the girl!"

I turned quickly and pulled Justin and Grover after me. We disappeared into the crowd.

"What's going on?" Justin demanded. "Was she talking about the Chihuahua on the elevator?"

I told them the whole story of the Chimera, Echidna, my high-dive act, and the underwater lady's message.

"Whoa," said Grover. "We've got to get you to Santa Monica! You can't ignore a summons from your dad."

Before Justin could respond, we passed another reporter doing a news break, and I almost froze in my tracks when he said, "Andrea Jackson. That's right, Dan. Channel Twelve has learned that the girl who may have caused this explosion fits the description of a young woman wanted by authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident three days ago. _And _the girl is believed to be traveling west. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Andrea Jackson."

We ducked around the news van and slipped into an alley.

"First things first," I told Grover. "We've got to get out of town!"

Somehow, we made it back to the Amtrak station without getting spotted. We got on board the train just before it pulled out for Denver. The train trundled west as darkness fell, police lights still pulsing against the St. Louis skyline behind us.

* * *

**Hey! I realized I never gave a good description of Andrea. SO...**

**Name: Alejandrina Rhea Pelagia Jackson **

**- Alejandrina is a variant of Alexandra (Greek) and means 'man's defender' (After her mortal grandmother)**

******- Rhea is greek and means 'flowing, river, stream' (named in honor of Andrea's other grandmother) **

**- Pelagia is greek and means 'of the sea' (In honor of Andrea's dad) **

**Nicknames: Andrea, Jannie, Ally, Rina, Seaweed brain, Barnacle breath, Kelp head, Angel face, Princess, Anne Johnson, and Alexandra Jaco.**

**Birthday: August 18, 1993**

**Eyes: Sea Green; Big/oversized almond eyes**

**Hair: Black; Wavy, Side bangs that cover Left eye, Lower-back**

**Face: Oval shaped with high cheek bones; tan skin, light red lips, rosy cheeks**

**Height: 4'11 (First book), 5'3 (second book), 5'7 (third Book), 5'9 (Fourth, fifth)**

**'Disabilities', Abilities, and Traits (The ones she has discovered and used in this book are in '**bold**'): **ADHD, dyslexia**, Vocal Mimicry, Limited Clairvoyance, **natural Fighting Skills, Water-Induced Abilities, Hydrokinesis, Healing Factor, Waterbreathing, Water Immunity,** Water Solidification, Sailing Skills, **Communication (with sea creatures),** Aerokinesis, Geokinesis, Cryokinesis, and Heat Resistance.**

**Species: Demi-god**

**Mother: Sally Jackson (mortal)**

**Father: Poseidon (god)**

* * *

**Do any of you people think that Andrea is more stupid than canon Percy?**


	16. Chapter 16

**I think I responded to all the ones who reviewed. Thanks for answering my question. Remember spanish is underlined.**

**I apologize for my bad insults, I am rubbish when I comes to directly insulting someone. Hope none of you get run over by a boat in the near future and enjoy!**

* * *

The next afternoon, June 14, seven days before the solstice, our train rolled into Denver. We hadn't eaten since the night before in the dining car, somewhere in Kansas. We hadn't taken a shower since Half-Blood Hill, and I was sure that was obvious.

"Let's try to contact Chiron," Justin said. "I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit."

"How? Phones?" I asked confused.

"I'm not talking about phones."

We wandered through downtown for about half an hour, though I wasn't sure what Justin was looking for. The air was dry and hot, which felt weird after the humidity of St. Louis. Everywhere we turned, the Rocky Mountains seemed to be staring at me, like a tidal wave about to crash into the city.

Finally we found an empty do-it-yourself car wash. We veered toward the stall farthest from the street, keeping our eyes open for patrol cars. We were three adolescents hanging out at a car wash without a car; any cop worth his doughnuts would figure we were up to no good.

"What exactly are we doing?" I asked, as Grover took out the spray gun.

"It's seventy-five cents," he grumbled. "I've only got two quarters left. Justin?"

"Don't look at me," he said. "The dining car wiped me out."

I fished out my last bit of change and passed Grover a quarter, which left me two nickels and one drachma from Medusa's place.

Plus that bit of money I stole from a mortal. In my defence I only took the guy's wallet for a second... and cleared it out of cash. He'll probably just go home and blame it on his kids. It was only thirty bucks anyway. I bet you're wondering how I know how to pickpocket people and stuff like that. Well, when you've been going to school with a bunch of juvenile delinquents your bound to learn a few things non-school related.

"Excellent," Grover said. "We could do it with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn't as good, and my arm gets tired of pumping."

"What are you talking about?"

He fed in the quarters and set the knob to FINE MIST. "I-M'ing."

"Instant messaging?"

"_Iris_-messaging," Justin corrected. "The rainbow goddess Iris carries messages for the gods. If you know how to ask, and she's not too busy, she'll do the same for half-bloods."

"That's nice of her," I said. "But how do you summon a goddess with a spray gun?"

Grover pointed the nozzle in the air and water hissed out in a thick white mist. "You need to make a rainbow."

The late afternoon light filtered through the vapor and broke into colors. Justin held his palm out to me. "Drachma, please."

I handed it over. He raised the coin over his head. "O goddess, accept our offering."

He threw the drachma into the rainbow. It disappeared in a golden shimmer.

"Half-Blood Hill," Justin requested.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then I was looking through the mist at strawberry fields, and the Long Island Sound in the distance. We seemed to be on the porch of the Big House. Standing with his back to us at the railing was a sandy-haired guy in shorts and an orange tank top. He was holding a bronze sword and seemed to be staring intently at something down in the meadow.

"Luke!" Justin called.

He turned, eyes wide. I could swear he was standing three feet in front of me through a screen of mist, except I could only see the part of him that appeared in the rainbow.

"Justin!" His scarred face broke into a grin. "Is that Andrea, too? Thank the gods! Are you guys okay?"

"We're ... uh ... fine," I said stiffy. He had a strange look in his eye that I didn't like.

"We thought—Chiron—I mean—" Justin started uncomfortably looking between Luke and me.

"He's down at the cabins." Luke's smile faded. "We're having some issues with the campers. Listen, is everything cool with you? Is Grover all right?"

"I'm right here," Grover called. He held the nozzle out to one side and stepped into Luke's line of vision. "What kind of issues?"

Just then a big Lincoln Continental pulled into the car wash with its stereo turned to maximum hip-hop. As the car slid into the next stall, the bass from the subwoofers vibrated so much, it shook the pavement.

"Chiron had to—what's that noise?" Luke yelled.

"I'll take care of it.'" Justin yelled back, looking very relieved to have an excuse to get out of sight.

"Grover, come on!"

"What?" Grover said. "But—"

"Give Andrea the nozzle and come on!" he ordered.

Grover muttered something about children of Athena being harder to understand than the Oracle at Delphi, then he handed me the spray gun and followed Justin. I readjusted the hose so I could keep the rainbow going and still see Luke.

"Chiron had to break up a fight," Luke shouted to me over the music. "Things are pretty tense here, Andrea. Word leaked out about the Zeus—Poseidon standoff. We're still not sure how—probably the same scumbag who summoned the hellhound. Now the campers are starting to take sides. It's shaping up like the Trojan War all over again. Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo are backing Poseidon, more or less. Athena is backing Zeus."

I shocked that Clarisse's cabin would ever be on my dad's side for anything, considering our relationship. I had half a mind to ask who was winning, but decided against it. In the next stall, I heard Justin and some guy arguing with each other, then the music's volume decreased drastically.

"So what's your status?" Luke asked me. "Chiron will be sorry he missed you."

I told him pretty much everything, including my dreams. What can I say the guy was easy to talk to, much easier than Justin anyway. But I still liked Justin more, he had more character and was a closer friend by now. Even though we bickered most of the time.

Still... it felt good to see Luke, to feel like I was back at camp even for a few minutes, that I didn't realize how long I had talked until the beeper went off on the spray machine, and I realized I only had one more minute before the water shut off.

"I wish I could be there," Luke told me. "We can't help much from here, I'm afraid, but listen ... it had to be Hades who took the master bolt. He was there at Olympus at the winter solstice. I was chaperoning a field trip and we saw him."

"But Chiron said the gods can't take each other's magic items directly."

"That's true," Luke said, looking troubled. "Still ... Hades has the helm of darkness. How could anybody else sneak into the throne room and steal the master bolt? You'd have to be invisible."

I narrowed my eyes at him. We were both silent, until Luke seemed to realize what he'd said.

"Oh, hey," he protested. "I didn't mean Justin. He and I have known each other forever. He would never ... I mean, he's like a little brother to me."

_Right... little brother. Your relationship just consist of him making plans that work to your benefit. _I though bitterly. I still stood by my opinion of Luke's loyalty to Justin.

In the stall next to us, the music stopped completely. A man screamed in terror, car doors slammed, and the Lincoln peeled out of the car wash. See, he has more character.

"You'd better go see what that was," Luke said. "Listen, are you wearing the flying shoes? I'll feel better if I know they've done you some good."

"Yes, they've been great."

"Really?" He grinned. "They fit and everything?"

The water shut off. The mist started to evaporate.

"Well, take care of yourself out there in Denver," Luke called, his voice getting fainter. "And tell Grover it'll be better this time! Nobody will get turned into a pine tree if he just—"

But the mist was gone, and Luke's image faded to nothing. I was alone in a wet, empty car wash stall. Justin and Grover came around the corner, laughing, but stopped when they saw my face. Justin's smile faded. "What happened, Andrea? What did Luke say?"

"Camp's at war with each other and I hope my side is winning."

We stood in silence before I broke it, "Come on, let's find some dinner."

A few minutes later, we were sitting at a booth in a gleaming chrome diner. All around us, families were eating burgers and drinking malts and sodas. Finally the waitress came over. She raised her eyebrow skeptically. "Well?"

I said, "We, um, want to order dinner."

"You kids have money to pay for it?"

Grover's lower lip quivered. I was afraid he would start bleating, or worse, start eating the linoleum. Justin looked ready to pass out from hunger. I soundlessly pulled out the money I stole and waved it in the waitress' face and simply said, "Yes."

She narrowed her eyes, "You look familiar."

My eyes widened innocently, "Lady, I have never seen you in my life."

"What's your name?" she pushed.

I though of an unused nickname quickly, "Ally."

"Ally What?"

I was about to snap at the waitress when a rumble shook the whole building; a motorcycle the size of a baby elephant had pulled up to the curb.

All conversation in the diner stopped. The motorcycle's headlight glared red. Its gas tank had flames painted on it, and a shotgun holster riveted to either side, complete with shotguns. The seat was leather—but leather that looked like ... well, Caucasian human skin.

The guy on the bike would've made pro wrestlers run for Mama. He was dressed in a red muscle shirt and black jeans and a black leather duster, with a hunting knife strapped to his thigh. He wore red wraparound shades, and he had the cruelest, most brutal face I'd ever seen— handsome, I guess, but wicked—with an oily black crew cut and cheeks that were scarred from many, many fights.

The weird thing was, I felt like I'd seen his face somewhere before. I recognized him a second later, he was the god of war. Ares.

As he walked into the diner, a hot, dry wind blew through the place. All the people rose, as if they were hypnotized, but the biker waved his hand dismissively and they all sat down again. Everybody went back to their conversations. The waitress blinked, as if somebody had just pressed the rewind button on her brain. She asked us again, "You kids have money to pay for it?"

I looked at the woman with my eye brow raised, then looked down at the money I had set on the table.

The biker said, "It's on me." He slid into our booth, which was way too small for him, and crowded Grover against the window. He looked up at the waitress, who was gaping at him, and said, "Are you still here?"

He pointed at her, and she stiffened. She turned as if she'd been spun around, then marched back toward the kitchen. The biker looked at me. I couldn't see his eyes behind the red shades, but bad feelings started boiling in my stomach. Anger, resentment, bitterness. He gave me a wicked grin. "So you're old Seaweed's kid, huh?"

I wanted to rip this guy's head off. "What's it to you?"

Justin's eyes flashed me a warning. "Andrea, this is—"

The biker raised his hand.

"S'okay," he said. "I don't mind a little attitude. Long as you remember who's the boss. You know who I am, little cousin?"

"I am not as dense as everyone thinks," I sneered at either Justin or Ares, I wasn't sure. "You're Ares, god of War."

Ares grinned and took off his shades. Where his eyes should've been, there was only fire, empty sockets glowing with miniature nuclear explosions. "That's right, punk. I heard you broke Clarisse's spear."

"She was asking for it."

"Probably. That's cool. I don't fight my kids' fights, you know? What I'm here for—I heard you were in town. I got a little proposition for you."

The waitress came back with heaping trays of food—cheeseburgers, fries, onion rings, and chocolate shakes. Ares handed her a few gold drachmas. She looked nervously at the coins. "But, these aren't..."

Ares pulled out his huge knife and started cleaning his fingernails. "Problem, sweetheart?"

The waitress swallowed, then left with the gold.

"You can't do that," I told Ares. "You can't just threaten people with a knife. Mortals are not just play things for gods."

Ares laughed. "Are you kidding? I love this country. Best place since Sparta. Don't you carry a weapon, punk? You should. Dangerous world out there. Which brings me to my proposition. I need you to do me a favor."

"What favor could I do for a god?" I mocked.

"Something a god doesn't have time to do himself. It's nothing much. I left my shield at an abandoned water park here in town. I was going on a little ... date with my girlfriend. We were interrupted. I left my shield behind. I want you to fetch it for me."

"Why don't you go back and get it yourself?"

The fire in his eye sockets glowed a little hotter.

"Why don't I turn you into a prairie dog and run you over with my Harley? Because I don't feel like it. A god is giving you an opportunity to prove yourself, Andrea Jackson. Will you prove yourself a coward?" He leaned forward. "Or maybe you only fight when there's a river to dive into, so your daddy can protect you."

I wanted to punch this guy, but somehow, I knew he was waiting for that. Ares's power was causing my anger. He'd love it if I attacked. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction. So, I did the safer thing and taunted him.

Well, maybe that wasn't the safer thing.

"I have more important thing's to do than to play fetch because you're too lazy to get your shield. For example the quest that I am currently on."

Ares's fiery eyes made me see things I didn't want to see—blood and smoke and corpses on the battlefield. My face turned emotionless, for the first time in a while, and silently I dared Ares to do something. "I know all about your quest, punk. When that _item _was first stolen, Zeus sent his best out looking for it: Apollo, Athena, Artemis, and me, naturally. If I couldn't sniff out a weapon that powerful ..." He licked his lips, as if the very thought of the master bolt made him hungry.

"Well ... if I couldn't find it, you got no hope. Nevertheless, I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. Your dad and I go way back. After all, I'm the one who told him my suspicions about old Corpse Breath."

I looked at him suspiciously, "You told him Hades stole the bolt?"

"Sure. Framing somebody to start a war. Oldest trick in the book. I recognized it immediately. In a way, you got me to thank for your little quest."

I glared at him and he took that as a _thank you._

"Hey, I'm a generous guy. Just do my little job, and I'll help you on your way. I'll arrange a ride west for you and your friends."

"We're doing fine on our own."

"Yeah, right. No money. No wheels. No clue what you're up against. Help me out, and maybe I'll tell you something you need to know. Something about your mom."

"My mom?"

He grinned. "That got your attention. The water park is a mile west on Delancy. You can't miss it. Look for the Tunnel of Love ride."

"What interrupted your date?" I asked. "Something scare you off?"

Ares bared his teeth, but I'd seen his threatening look before on Clarisse. There was something false about it, almost like he was nervous. Something _did_ scare him off.

"You're lucky you met me, punk, and not one of the other Olympians. They're not as forgiving of rudeness as I am-"

"Dionysus is."

Which is true, Once I've disrespected him more than I have Ares in the span of a minute and he still didn't do anything. Ares just gridded his teeth, "-I'll meet you back here when you're done. Don't disappoint me."

After that I must have fainted, or fallen into a trance, because when I opened my eyes again, Ares was gone. I might've thought the conversation had been a dream, but Justin and Grover's expressions told me otherwise.

"Not good," Grover said. "Ares sought you out, Andrea. This is not good."

I stared out the window. The motorcycle had disappeared.

Did Ares really know something about my mom, or was he just playing with me? Now that he was gone, all the anger had drained out of me. I realized Ares must love to mess with people's emotions. That was his power—cranking up the passions so badly, they clouded your ability to think.

"It's probably some kind of trick," I said. "Forget Ares. Let's just go."

"We can't," Justin said. "Look, I hate Ares as much as the next person, but you don't ignore the gods unless you want serious bad fortune. He wasn't kidding about turning you into a rodent."

I looked down at my cheeseburger, which suddenly didn't seem so appetizing. "Why does he need us?"

"Maybe it's a problem that requires brains," Justin said as I let out a small laugh. "Ares has strength. That's all he has. Even strength has to bow to wisdom sometimes."

"But this water park ... he acted scared. What would make a war-god run away like that?"

Justin and Grover glanced nervously at each other. Justin said, "I'm afraid we'll have to find out."

The sun was sinking behind the mountains by the time we found the water park. Judging from the sign, it once had been called WATERLAND, but now some of the letters were smashed out, so it read WAT R A D.

The main gate was padlocked and topped with barbed wire. Inside, huge dry waterslides and tubes and pipes curled everywhere, leading to empty pools. Old tickets and advertisements fluttered around the asphalt. With night coming on, the place looked sad and creepy.

"Isn't the Aphrodite, Goddess of love, Ares' girlfriend?"

"Yes."

"I thought she was married to somebody," I said. "Hephaestus."

"What's your point?" he asked.

"Sorry! I was just trying to figure out if the gods are that unfaithful, separate myth from reality," I suddenly felt the need to change the subject. "So how do we get in?"

_"Maia!"_

Grover's shoes sprouted wings.

He flew over the fence, did an unintended somersault in midair, then stumbled to a landing on the opposite side. He dusted off his jeans, as if he'd planned the whole thing. "You guys coming?"

Justin and I had to climb the old-fashioned way, holding down the barbed wire for each other as we crawled over the top.

The shadows grew long as we walked through the park, checking out the attractions. There was Ankle Biter Island, Head Over Wedgie, and Dude, Where's My Swimsuit? No monsters came to get us. Nothing made the slightest noise. We found a souvenir shop that had been left open. Merchandise still lined the shelves: snow globes, pencils, postcards, and racks of—

"Clothes," I said. "Fresh clothes."

"Yeah," Justin said. "But you can't just—"

"Watch me."

I snatched an entire row of stuff of the racks and disappeared into the changing room. I changed out of my burnt and dirty clothes into faded shorts, an oversized teal Waterland T-shirt that covered the shorts, and white vans surf shoes. Then I walked to the counter of the shop ans stuffed bags of chips, bottles of soda and water, granola bars, and a Waterland hat in a Waterland backpack.

I took a pair of sunglasses from a nearby rack and put them on my head after I put my hair back in a ponytail. I did all that in under five minutes then walked out of the gift shop with the backpack slung over my shoulder and met the boys in the front, feeling happy and slightly refreshed.

"What the heck." Grover shrugged. Soon the boys also changed and all three of us were walking advertisements for the defunct theme park. We continued searching for the Tunnel of Love. I got the feeling that the whole park was holding its breath.

"So, What about Aphrodite's husband?"

"Well, you know," he said. "Hephaestus. The black smith. He was crippled when he was a baby, thrown off Mount Olympus by Zeus. So he isn't exactly handsome. Clever with his hands, and all, but Aphrodite isn't into brains and talent, you know?"

"That's sad."

"What is?"

"That she isn't into brains and talent. Hephaestus knows?"

_I felt as if I should have known this, but this was gossip. Ancient gossip and I don't really concern myself with things such as that. _

"Oh sure," Justin said. "He caught them together once. I mean, literally caught them, in a golden net, and invited all the gods to come and laugh at them. Hephaestus is always trying to embarrass them. That's why they meet in out-of-the-way places, like ..."

He stopped, looking straight ahead. "Like that."

In front of us was an empty pool that would've been awesome for skateboarding. It was at least fifty yards across and shaped like a bowl. Around the rim, a dozen bronze statues of Cupid stood guard with wings spread and bows ready to fire. On the opposite side from us, a tunnel opened up, probably where the water flowed into when the pool was full. The sign above it read, THRILL RIDE O' LOVE: THIS IS NOT YOUR PARENTS' TUNNEL OF LOVE!

Grover crept toward the edge. "Guys, look."

Marooned at the bottom of the pool was a pink-and-white two-seater boat with a canopy over the top and little hearts painted all over it. In the left seat, glinting in the fading light, was Ares's shield, a polished circle of bronze.

"This is too easy," I said. Justin ran his fingers along the base of the nearest Cupid statue.

"There's a Greek letter carved here," he said. "Eta. I wonder ..."

_Eta, the greek letter H?_ I shook my head and focused on getting the stupid shield for the stupid god.

"Grover," I said, "you smell any monsters?"

He sniffed the wind. "Nothing."

"Nothing—like, in-the-Arch-and-you-didn't-smell-Echidna nothing, or really nothing?"

Grover looked hurt. "I told you, that was underground."

"Okay, I'm sorry." I took a deep breath. "I'm going down there."

"I'll go with you." Grover didn't sound too enthusiastic, but I got the feeling he was trying to make up for what had happened in St. Louis.

"No," I told him. "I want you to stay up top with the flying shoes. You're the Red Baron, a flying ace, remember? I'll be counting on you for backup, in case something goes wrong."

Grover puffed up his chest a little. "Sure. But what could go wrong?"

"I don't know. Just a feeling."

"Let's go." Justin said.

I looked at him with an odd look, "You're coming?"

"What's the problem now?" Justin demanded.

"Me, go with you to the ... the 'Thrill Ride of Love'? What if somebody saw us?"

"Who's going to see us?" His face was red and he looked slightly insulted. I sighed, grabbed his hand and pulled him along down the side of the pool, accepting his help.

We reached the boat. The shield was propped on one seat. I tried to imagine Ares and Aphrodite here, a couple of gods meeting in a junked-out amusement-park ride. Why? Then I noticed something I hadn't seen from up top: mirrors all the way around the rim of the pool, facing this spot. We could see ourselves no matter which direction we looked. That must be it. While Ares and Aphrodite were smooching with each other they could look at their favorite people: themselves. I tried not to throw up as I moved toward the shield with Justin close behind.

The moment I touched the shield, I knew we were in trouble. My hand broke through something that had been connecting it to the dashboard. A cobweb, I thought, but then I looked at a strand of it on my palm and saw it was some kind of metal filament, so fine it was almost invisible. A trip wire.

Uh-oh

"Wait," Justin said. "There's another Greek letter on the side of the boat, another Eta. This is a trap."

Noise erupted all around us, of a million gears grinding, as if the whole pool were turning into one giant machine.

Grover yelled, "Guys!"

Up on the rim, the Cupid statues were drawing their bows into firing position. Before I could suggest taking cover, they shot, but not at us. They fired at each other, across the rim of the pool. Silky cables trailed from the arrows, arching over the pool and anchoring where they landed to form a huge golden asterisk. Then smaller metallic threads started weaving together magically between the main strands, making a net.

"We have to get out," Justin said.

"Duh!" I said. I grabbed the shield and we ran, but going up the slope of the pool was not as easy as going down.

"Come on!" Grover shouted.

He was trying to hold open a section of the net for us, but wherever he touched it, the golden threads started to wrap around his hands. The Cupids' heads popped open. Out came video cameras. Spotlights rose up all around the pool, blinding us with illumination, and a loudspeaker voice boomed: "Live to Olympus in one minute ... Fifty-nine seconds, fifty-eight ..."

"Hephaestus!" Justin screamed. "I'm so stupid. 'Eta is H.' He made this trap to catch his wife with Ares. Now we're going to be broadcast live to Olympus and look like absolute fools!"

We'd almost made it to the rim when the row of mirrors opened like hatches and thousands of tiny metallic ... things poured out. Justin gave a small yelp. It was an army of wind-up creepy-crawlies: bronze-gear bodies, spindly legs, little pincer mouths, all scuttling toward us in a wave of clacking, whirring metal.

"Spiders!" Justin said.

I'd never seen him like this before. He fell backward in terror and almost got overwhelmed by the spider robots before I pulled him up and dragged him back toward the boat. The things were coming out from all around the rim now, millions of them, flooding toward the center of the pool, completely surrounding us.

I told myself they probably weren't programmed to kill, just corral us and bite us and make us look stupid. Then again, this was a trap meant for gods. And we weren't gods.

Justin and I climbed into the boat. I started kicking away the spiders as they swarmed aboard. I yelled at Justin to help me and he started stomping on them as if it was his job.

"Thirty, twenty-nine," called the loudspeaker.

The spiders started spitting out strands of metal thread, trying to tie us down. The strands were easy enough to break at first, but there were so many of them, and the spiders just kept coming. I kicked one away from Justin's leg and its pincers took a chunk out of my new surf shoe.

_That's not good._

Grover hovered above the pool in his flying sneakers, trying to pull the net loose, but it wouldn't budge.

_Think_, I told myself. _Think._

The Tunnel of Love entrance was under the net. We could use it as an exit, except that it was blocked by a million robot spiders.

"Fifteen, fourteen," the loudspeaker called.

Water, I thought. Where does the ride's water come from?

Then I saw them: huge water pipes behind the mirrors, where the spiders had come from. And up above the net, next to one of the Cupids, a glass-windowed booth that must be the controller's station.

"Grover!" I yelled. "Get into that booth! Find the 'on' switch!"

"But—"

"Do it!" It was a crazy hope, but it was our only chance. The spiders were all over the prow of the boat now. Justin was still doing some sort of tap dance. I had to get us out of there. Grover was in the controller's booth now, slamming away at the buttons.

"Five, four—"

Grover looked up at me hopelessly, raising his hands. He was letting me know that he'd pushed every button, but still nothing was happening.

I closed my eyes and thought about waves, rushing water, the Mississippi River. I felt a familiar tug in my gut. I tried to imagine that I was dragging the ocean all the way to Denver.

"Two, one, _zero_!"

Water exploded out of the pipes. It roared into the pool, sweeping away the spiders. I pulled Justin into the seat next to me and he fastened his seat belt just as the tidal wave slammed into our boat, over the top, whisking the spiders away and dousing us completely, but not capsizing us. The boat turned, lifted in the flood, and spun in circles around the whirlpool.

The water was full of short-circuiting spiders, some of them smashing against the pool's concrete wall with such force they burst. Spotlights glared down at us. The Cupid-cams were rolling, live to Olympus.

I concentrated on controlling the boat. I willed it to ride the current, to keep away from the wall. Maybe it was my imagination, but the boat seemed to respond. At least, it didn't break into a million pieces. We spun around one last time, the water level now almost high enough to shred us against the metal net. Then the boat's nose turned toward the tunnel and we rocketed through into the darkness.

Justin and I held tight, both of us screaming as the boat shot curls and hugged corners and took forty-five-degree plunges past pictures of Romeo and Juliet and a bunch of other Valentine's Day stuff. Ugh, this place was _so _pink I wanted to throw up. Then we were out of the tunnel, the night air whistling through our hair as the boat barreled straight toward the exit.

If the ride had been in working order, we would've sailed off a ramp between the golden Gates of Love and splashed down safely in the exit pool. But there was a problem. The Gates of Love were chained. Two boats that had been washed out of the tunnel before us were now piled against the barricade—one submerged, the other cracked in half.

"Unfasten your seat belt," I yelled to Justin.

"Are you crazy?"

I looked at Justin with a look that said, _where have you been?_

"Unless you want to get smashed to death." I strapped Ares's shield to Justin's arm, since it was a bit heavy for me. "We're going to have to jump for it."

My idea was simple and insane. As the boat struck, we would use its force like a springboard to jump the gate. I'd heard of people surviving car crashes that way, getting thrown thirty or forty feet away from an accident. With luck, we would land in the pool. Justin seemed to understand. He gripped my hand as the gates got closer.

"On my mark," He said.

I nodded, thinking best that to argue. After all, he was the 'almighty wise one'.

He hesitated ... hesitated ... then yelled, "Now!"

_Crack!_

He got us maximum lift. Unfortunately, that was a little more than we needed. Our boat smashed into the pileup and we were thrown into the air, straight over the gates, over the pool, and down toward solid asphalt.

Something grabbed my arm and a sharp pain ran through it, "Ouch!"

Grover!

In midair, He had grabbed me by the arm, and Justin by the shirt, and was trying to pull us out of a crash landing, but Justin and I had all the momentum.

"You're too heavy!" Grover said. "We're going down!"

We spiraled toward the ground, Grover doing his best to slow the fall.

We smashed into a photo-board, Grover's head going straight into the hole where tourists would put their faces, pretending to be Noo-Noo the Friendly Whale. Justin and I tumbled to the ground, banged up but alive. Ares's shield was still on Justin's arm.

Once we caught our breath, Justin and I got Grover out of the photo-board and thanked him for saving our lives. I looked back at the Thrill Ride of Love. The water was subsiding. Our boat had been smashed to pieces against the gates.

A hundred yards away, at the entrance pool, the Cupids were still filming. The statues had swiveled so that their cameras were trained straight on us, the spotlights in our faces. I was pissed.

"That good for nothing...inable piece of ... knew it was a trap, we could have been killed," I started pacing, Grover and Justin were watching me, and the cupids were filming the whole thing. "I mean everyone is entitled to be stupid, but that god is abusing that privilege. It's scary to think that people like him are allowed to breed! Heck this scary to think that he's a god! It's pointless to make fun of him because it will take him the rest of the day to figure it out."

I hardly noticed that the water was acting up again or the mix of fear and awe on my friend's face.

"God of war, indeed," I scoffed. "More like the god of cowards or -"

I was cut off by a hand on my shoulder, I traced the hand to the arm to the shoulder to the neck to the face of Justin. I quickly turned back to the cupids ready to continue when he spoke," Look around."

I did as he said and was shocked at what I found. A 20 foot whirlpool surrounded us, moving at a rapid speed, it was also closing in on us. I calmed down quickly and the water dropped from its spot, like a very short rain storm. Now, that the water wasn't the only thing in my view I was even more shocked than before.

The water destroyed everything within 50 feet.

The umbrella's that were cemented into the ground were pulled out and broken in half. I big metal starfish nearby now was reduced to scraps and spread very far a part, some were at the bottom of the overfilled pool. Another was logged in the photo-board that Grover occupied a few minutes before. The ground had not been sparred either, many parts were crumbling and had cracked. The walls of building were gone as well.

I looked as if a tiny hurricane had blown in at the same time an earthquake happened. The only thing that was sparred were Justin, Grover, the cupids (who were still filming), and me. I felt very tired and my knees buckled. Justin caught me. With my arm around his shoulder and his around my waist, he helped me stand.

"Show's over!" He yelled.

The Cupids turned back to their original positions. The lights shut off. The park went quiet and dark again, except for the gentle trickle of water into the Thrill Ride of Love's exit pool. I wondered if Olympus had gone to a commercial break, or if our ratings had been any good.

I hated being teased. I hated being tricked. And I had plenty of experience handling bullies who liked to do that stuff to me.

I felt Justin shift and he gave Grover the shield, who hefted the shield on his arm. I smiled at them sheepishly and slightly sleepily. "Just stay awake for a little while longer."

"Justin?"

"Yes."

"Do the gods know how to speak spanish?"

He though for a second, "Not anymore."

I nodded, "Good. Now, we need to have a little talk with Ares."

I looked around the park once again. At what I did. I had a feeling I won't be able to do something like this again.

* * *

**Now for Justin's description. (P.S. It's going to suck)**

**Name: Justin Whitford Chase**

**Nickname: Wonder boy (Andrea), Wise One (Andrea), Prince Charming (clarisse)**

**Birthday: July 23**

**Eyes: Intense Gray; Hooded eyes, think eyelashes**

**Hair: Beach Blonde; Cruly, bangs hang over face.**

**Face: Inverted Triangle, Tan, Full pink lips**

**Height: 5'2 (first book), 5'5 (second book), 5'7 (third Book), 5'11 (Fourth) , 6'0 (fifth)**

**'Disabilities', Abilities, and Traits: ADHD, dyslexia, master strategist, hand-to-hand combat, and extremely intelligent, wise and clever **

**Mother: Athena**

**Father: Fredrick Chase**

* * *

**What is your first memory?**

**Also thank you Guest for rethinking and I understand.**


	17. Chapter 17

**Hey people! A lot of you reviewed saying that you wanted me to write a chapter were the gods react to the tunnel of love. I've decided to write it after I finish the story, as a one-shot. Hope you guys don't mind me putting it off.**

**Thanks for all the reviews and enjoy.**

* * *

We walked back to the diner in silence. I was walking on my own now, but I was extremely tired and the boys knew that and stuck close to me and helped me when I needed it. The war god was waiting for us in the diner parking lot.

I calmly took the shield from Grover. Too calmly, so Justin was keeping a close eye on me to make sure I wouldn't do something stupid.

Ha! Like he could stop me.

"Well, well," said Ares the butt-crack. "You didn't get yourself killed."

_So, he doesn't know spanish. Or at least forgot...Exelent._

"No thanks to you," I sneered.

Ares gave me a wicked grin. "Bet that crippled black smith was surprised when he netted a couple of stupid kids. You looked good on TV."

I shoved his shield at him. "You're a jerk. And a disgrace."

Justin and Grover caught their breath. Ares grabbed the shield and spun it in the air like pizza dough. It changed form, melting into a bulletproof vest. He slung it across his back.

"See that truck over there?" He pointed to an eighteen-wheeler parked across the street from the diner. "That's your ride. Take you straight to L.A., with one stop in Vegas."

_Yep he doesn't know spanish. Or at least forgot._

I turned my attention to the eighteen-wheeler had a sign on the back, which I could read it fast than usual, because it was reverse-printed white on black, a good combination for dyslexia: KINDNESS INTERNATIONAL: HUMANE ZOO TRANSPORT. WARNING: LIVE WILD ANIMALS.

I said, "You're kidding."

Ares snapped his fingers. The back door of the truck unlatched. "Free ride west, punk. Stop complaining. And here's a little something for doing the job."

He slung a blue nylon backpack off his handlebars and tossed it to me. Inside were fresh clothes for all of us, twenty bucks in cash, a pouch full of golden drachmas, and a bag of Double Stuff Oreos.

I said, "I don't want anything that you contam—"

"Thank you, Lord Ares," Grover interrupted, giving me his best red-alert warning look. "Thanks a lot.".

I gritted my teeth. It was probably a deadly insult to refuse something from a god, but I didn't want anything that Ares had touched. Reluctantly, I slung the backpack over my shoulder. I knew my anger was being caused by the war god's presence, but I was still itching to punch him in the nose. He reminded me of every bully I'd ever faced: Nancy Bobofit, Clarisse, Smelly Gabe, sarcastic teachers that refused to teach _me_—every jerk who'd called me stupid in school or laughed at me when I'd gotten expelled.

I looked back at the diner, which had only a couple of customers now. The waitress who'd served us dinner was watching nervously out the window, like she was afraid Ares might hurt us. She dragged the fry cook out from the kitchen to see. She said something to him. He nodded, held up a little disposable camera and snapped a picture of us.

_Great,_ I thought. _She recognized me. I wonder what trash would be in the headlines tomorrow? Twelve Year Old Girl Beats Up Defenceless Biker? Ha Ha! I would love to see that!_

"You owe me one more thing," I told Ares, trying to keep my voice level. "You promised me information about my mother."

"You sure you can handle the news?" He kick started his motorcycle. "She's not dead. She was taken away from the Minotaur before she could die. She was turned into a shower of gold, right? That's metamorphosis. Not death. She's being kept."

"Kept?" I asked confused.

"You need to study war, punk. Hostages. You take somebody to control somebody else."

I growled, "Nobody's controlling me."

He laughed. "Oh yeah? See you around, kid."

I balled up my fists. "You're pretty smug, Lord Ares, for a guy who runs from Cupid statues."

Behind his sunglasses, fire glowed. I felt a hot wind in my hair. "We'll meet again, Andrea Jackson. Next time you're in a fight, watch your back."

He revved his Harley, then roared off down Delancy Street.

Justin said, "That was not smart, Andrea."

"I already pissed off 2 gods, what's one more?"

"You don't want any god as your enemy. Especially not that god."

"Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Don't anger Mr-."

"Hey, guys," Grover said. "I hate to interrupt, but ..."

He pointed toward the diner. At the register, the last two customers were paying their check, two men in identical black coveralls, with a white logo on their backs that matched the one on the KINDNESS INTERNATIONAL truck.

"If we're taking the zoo express," Grover said, "we need to hurry."

I didn't like it, but we had no better option. Besides, I'd seen enough of Denver. We ran across the street and climbed in the back of the big rig, closing the doors behind us. The first thing that hit me was the smell. It was like the world's biggest pan of kitty litter.

The trailer was dark inside until I changed Anaklusmos. The blade cast a faint bronze light over a very sad scene. Sitting in a row of filthy metal cages were three of the most pathetic zoo animals I'd ever beheld: a zebra, a male albino lion, and some weird antelope thing I didn't know the name for.

Someone had thrown the lion a sack of turnips, which he obviously didn't want to eat. The zebra and the antelope had each gotten a Styrofoam tray of hamburger meat. The zebra's mane was matted with chewing gum, like somebody had been spitting on it in their spare time. The antelope had a stupid silver birthday balloon tied to one of his horns that read OVER THE HILL!

Apparently, nobody had wanted to get close enough to the lion to mess with him, but the poor thing was pacing around on soiled blankets, in a space way too small for him, panting from the stuffy heat of the trailer. He had flies buzzing around his pink eyes and his ribs showed through his white fur.

"This is kindness?" Grover yelled. "Humane zoo transport?"

He probably would've gone right back outside to beat up the truckers with his reed pipes, and I would've helped him, but just then the trucks engine roared to life, the trailer started shaking, and we were forced to sit down or fall down. I chose fall down and stumbled towards the cruelly treated animals, before plopping down by the zebra's cage.

I stretched out in front of the cages of the herbivores on some mildewed feed sacks, trying to ignore the smell and the heat and the flies while the boys did the same in the corner. I looked at the animals, calculating the safest way to switch the foods, before deciding on waiting for the lion to fall asleep. I hummed Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol, shut my eyes and just listened.

Grover started talking to the animals in a series of goat bleats, but they just stared at him sadly. Justin was in favor of breaking the cages and freeing them on the spot. I responded, 'Great, then we'll be stuck in a steel box with a _very_ hungry, hungry, lion, we should wait untill we come to a stop.'

I found a water jug and refilled their bowls, as soon as the lion entered dreamland I used Anaklusmos to drag the mismatched food out of their cages. I gave the meat to the lion and the turnips to the zebra and the antelope.

Grover calmed the antelope down, while Justin used his knife to cut the balloon off his horn. He wanted to cut the gum out of the zebra's mane, too, but we decided that would be too risky with the truck bumping around. So, I started hand-picking the gum myself, I was halfway through when I got so tired that I couldn't continue.

We told Grover to promise the animals we'd help them more in the morning, then we settled in for night.

Grover curled up on a turnip sack; Justin opened our bag of Double Stuff Oreos and nibbled on one halfheartedly; I tried to cheer myself up by concentrating on the fact that we were halfway to Los Angeles. Halfway to our destination. It was only June fourteenth. The solstice wasn't until the twenty-first. We could make it in plenty of time.

But the gods kept toying with me. At least Hephaestus had the decency to be honest about it—he'd put up cameras and advertised me as entertainment. But even when the cameras weren't rolling, I had a feeling my quest was being watched. I was a source of amusement for the gods.

_I was glad to be of service._

With that thought I fell asleep.

* * *

'Mommy? Auntie? Mommy!' I heard a child's panicked screams echo in my ears, but only saw white. 'Mommy! Mommy! Auntie! Where are you?'

'Andrea!' I heard my mother's and aunt's shouts.

'Mommy!'

With this I was greeted with a 3-year-old me running down the beach and jumping into my mom's arms. I heard the laughter of Aunt Rosie as she approached dream me and mom. I gave her a kiss on the cheek as I was passed into the arms of my aunt.

'Where were you, Andrea?' My mother said in a mock scolding tone.

'Talking with the fishes.' The dream me said as she pointed to the sea that now appeared out of the white mass. I would recognize the landscape from anywhere. We were at Montauk, for my 3rd birthday. The dream or past, since this was a memory, grown ups lost there smiles and exchanged glances, before my mother regained her smile and asked, 'What did they say?'

'That daddy was watching over me.'

My mom stroked my cheek lovingly, 'He is, Angel, he is and he loves you very much.'

'Come on, little princess,' my aunt said, using my old pet name, and picked me up. My mother held my hand and together we went to only cabin I ever stayed at. As soon as we got to the porch time slowed down before coming to a stop, I watched confused before it turned to darkness. I felt as if I was falling, again.

Really, I am not in the mood to be recruited.

'Howdy, pit-man.' I said in a horrible country accent.

I the pit/man/thing let out a deep laugh, 'poor foolish demigod. Family isn't everything.'

'Okay.'

'So you chose to join me.'

'Uh...hell no! I just accept the fact that you are lost,' I let out a small wail. 'Your head is to far up your ass!'

'You dare to spe-'

_'Yes, well, it was wonderful to see you, but I must go. Oh, and Eat. My. Shorts. Thank you for calling upon me have a nice night.'_

* * *

I jerked my eyes open and examined my surroundings. Slowly I remembered why I was laying in a pile of hay. The god of war decide to play saint, I let out a low growl.

"Awake?" I all but jumped at Justin's voice. Turning to the speaker I noticed his stiff posture and that he was still nibbling on the same cookie as when I went to sleep. I glared at him because, and I'll never admit this out loud, he scared me.

"Yes." I said rudely.

"Why? You must be tired after what you did back at WATERLAND."

"No, of your business."

Justin raised his hands in surrender, "I was just asking because I was concerned yo-"

"Well, I never asked you to be concerned did I? Now go back to having nightmares about tiny spiders."

Justin went deadly quiet and his body turned rigid. I looked down emotionless, but Justin never saw that because he had already turned away from me with the obvious look of hurt written on his face.

_Serves him right my business is just that _my_ business,_ I thought grumpy.

_He was just being a good friend,_ my brain scolded myself. _Apologize!_

_No!_

Then I took another look at his face, "Look...I'm...uh...sorry...I'm...um...just... annoyed." Justin tilted his head slightly to the right, I took that as a sign that he was listening, "I...don't know how to talk around..._ friends._"

Justin was slowly turning towards me and said in a quiet voice, "You've never had a friend."

I nodded, blushing. I had never told anyone that not even my mom or aunt, "Not until Grover. I was never..._popular_ at schools whether it was with students or teachers. Students always picked on me, my reactions are apparently the best and usually got in trouble when I 'blew my top'. Teachers have never given me the time of day -except to insult me- after they was my _disabilities._"

"Your teachers refused to teach you because you have dyslexia and ADHD?"

"Some were afraid of me, I don't blame them I had quite the record when it came to schools," I allowed myself a small smile, but other that my face remained sad. "So growing up I taught myself, I spent hours at the library reading, despite the terrible headaches I got."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't exactly grow up on the 'right side of town' and I was determined not to remain there. I was determined to get good grades and hopefully get a scholarship to a school of my chosing."

"What do you want to be," Justin asked, probably trying to understand me. _Good luck, I don't even understand me._

"I don't know. That's why another reason why make sure to do well in _all_ classes so when I do... I'll have the tools I need to get there."

Justin looked dubious, "You never knew what you want to be when you grew up. No dream worth living?"

I was slightly amused by his naiveness, "Moving out of my 'home' was all I could hope for."

"Still..."

I thought about it, _what did I want? World peace...pipe dream. To save the rain forest...no, I'm not that much of a hippie to belive I can actually do it. _"Um...be something more than a housewife?"

Justin gave me a unimpressed look.

"Ugh, fine. I guess... I know every other person says it, but I want to live after my death. I want to do something _amazing_ and impossible that anyone could besides me." _And that's easier than saving the rain forest?_

_Shut up brain._

_No, you shut up._

_No you. _

_No you._

_No you._

"So..." Justin said breaking me out of my argument with my brain. "You want to be a..."

"Legend, although not for something like 'how you should heed the H when going in the Tunnel O' Love.'"

He let out a small chuckle, "I'm sorry for freaking out back at the water park, Andrea."

"That's okay."

"It's just..." He shuddered. "Spiders."

"Because of the Arachne story," I guessed. "She got turned into a spider for challenging your mom to a weaving contest."

Justin nodded. "Arachne's children have been taking revenge on the children of Athena ever since. If there's a spider within a mile of me, it'll find me. I hate the creepy little things. Anyway, I owe you."

"We're a team, remember?" I said. "Besides, Grover did the fancy flying."

I thought he was asleep, but he mumbled from the corner, "I was pretty amazing, wasn't I?"

Justin and I laughed. He pulled apart an Oreo, handed me half. "In the Iris message ... did Luke really say nothing?"

I munched my cookie and thought about how to answer. The conversation via rainbow had bothered me all evening. "Luke said you and he go way back. He also said Grover wouldn't fail this time. Nobody would turn into a pine tree."

In the dim bronze light of the sword blade, it was hard to read their expressions. Grover let out a mournful bray.

"I should've told you the truth from the beginning." His voice trembled. "I thought if you knew what a failure I was, you wouldn't want me along."

"You were the satyr who tried to rescue Thalia, the daughter of Zeus."

He nodded glumly.

"And the other two half-bloods Thalia befriended, the ones who got safely to camp ..." I looked at Justin. "That was you and Luke, wasn't it?"

He put down his Oreo, uneaten. "Like you said, Andrea, a seven-year-old half-blood wouldn't have made it very far alone. Athena guided me toward help. Thalia was twelve. Luke was fourteen. They'd both run away from home, like me. They were happy to take me with them. They were ... amazing monster-fighters, even without training. We traveled north from Virginia without any real plans, fending off monsters for about two weeks before Grover found us."

"I was supposed to escort Thalia to camp," Grover said, sniffling. "Only Thalia. I had strict orders from Chiron: don't do anything that would slow down the rescue. We knew Hades was after her, see, but I couldn't just leave Luke and Justin by themselves. I thought ... I thought I could lead all three of them to safety. It was my fault the Kindly Ones caught up with us. I froze. I got scared on the way back to camp and took some wrong turns. If I'd just been a little quicker …"

"Stop it," Justin said. "No one blames you. Thalia didn't blame you either."

"She sacrificed herself to save us," he said miserably, "Her death was my fault. The Council of Cloven Elders said so."

"Because you wouldn't leave two other half-bloods behind?" I said. "That's not fair. Do I need to beat up some Elders?"

"Andrea's right," Justin said. "I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for you, Grover. Neither would Luke. We don't care what the council says."

Grover kept sniffling in the dark. "It's just my luck. I'm the lamest satyr ever, and I find the two most powerful half-bloods of the century, Thalia and Andrea."

"You're not lame," Justin insisted. "You've got more courage than any satyr I've ever met. Name one other who would dare go to the Underworld. I bet Andrea is really glad you're here right now."

"I am," I put in. After all he was my first friend.

"It's not luck that you found Thalia and me, Grover. You've got the biggest heart of any satyr ever. You're a natural searcher. That's why you'll be the one who finds Pan."

I heard a deep, satisfied sigh. I waited for Grover to say something, but his breathing only got heavier. When the sound turned to snoring, I realized he'd fallen sleep.

"How does he do that?" I marveled.

"I don't know," Justin said. "But that was really a nice thing you told him."

"About beating up elders?"

"Yes."

"I meant it."

We rode in silence for a few miles, bumping around on the feed sacks. The zebra munched a turnip. The lion licked the last of the hamburger meat off his lips and looked at me hopefully. _You don't want to eat me, I taste like chicken. Wait that's not right, I ment that I taste like the sea, very salty._

Justin rubbed his necklace like he was thinking deep, strategic thoughts.

"That pine-tree bead," I said. "Is that from your first year?"

He looked. He hadn't realized what he was doing.

"Yeah," he said. "Every August, the counselors pick the most important event of the summer, and they paint it on that year's beads. I've got Thalia's pine tree, a Greek trireme on fire, a centaur in a prom dress—now that was a weird summer..."

"And the college ring is your father's?"

"That's none of your—" He stopped himself. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."

"You don't have to tell me."

"No ... it's okay. You told me about you, so," He took a shaky breath. "My dad sent it to me folded up in a letter, two summers ago. The ring was, like, his main keepsake from Athena. He wouldn't have gotten through his doctoral program at Harvard without her... That's a long story. Anyway, he said he wanted me to have it. He apologized for being a jerk, said he loved me and missed me. He wanted me to come home and live with him."

"That doesn't sound so bad."

"Yeah, well... the problem was, I believed him. I tried to go home for that school year, but my stepmom was the same as ever. She didn't want her kids put in danger by living with a freak. Monsters attacked. We argued. Monsters attacked. We argued. I didn't even make it through winter break. I called Chiron and came right back to Camp Half-Blood."

"You think you'll ever try living with your dad again?"

He wouldn't meet my eyes. "Please. I'm not into self-inflicted pain."

"You shouldn't give up," I told him. "You should write him a letter or something."

"Thanks for the advice," he said coldly, "but my father's made his choice about who he wants to live with."

"Really? Has he told you that he doesn't want you to live with him? What if he wants his eldest child with him? It seems to me that your stepmom was the only one who let her feelings on the matter show."

"That's the point he didn't do anything, he just watched our arguments."

"Well, then maybe you should have more patience when it comes to him, rasing demigods isn't an easy task."

We passed another few miles of silence.

"If the gods fight," I said, "will things line up the way they did with the Trojan War? Will it be Athena versus Poseidon?"

He put his head against the backpack Ares had given us, and closed his eyes. "I don't know what my mom will do. I just know I'll fight next to you."

"Why?"

"Because you're my friend, Seaweed Brain. Any more stupid questions?"

I couldn't think of an answer for that. Fortunately I didn't have to. Justin was asleep. I had trouble following her example, with Grover snoring and an albino lion staring hungrily at me, but eventually I closed my eyes with a small smile on my lips.

* * *

My nightmare started out as something I'd dreamed a million times before: I was being forced to take a standardized test while wearing a straitjacket. All the other kids were going out to recess, and the teacher kept saying, Come on, Andrea. You're not stupid, are you? Pick up your pencil.

Then the dream strayed from the usual.

I looked over at the next desk and saw a girl sitting there, also wearing a straitjacket. She was my age, with unruly black, punk-style hair, dark eyeliner around her stormy green eyes, and freckles across her nose. Somehow, I knew who she was. She was Thalia, daughter of Zeus.

She struggled against the straitjacket, glared at me in frustration, and snapped, "_Well, Seaweed Brain? One of us has to get out of here._"

She's right, my dream-self thought. I'm going back to that cavern. I'm going to give Hades a piece of my mind. The straitjacket melted off me. I fell through the class room floor. The teacher's voice changed until it was cold and evil, echoing from the depths of a great chasm.

_Andrea Jackson,_it said._Yes, the exchange went well, I see._

Great, pit-man returns. I was back in the dark cavern, spirits of the dead drifting around me. Unseen in the pit, the monstrous thing was speaking, but this time it wasn't addressing me. The numbing power of its voice seemed directed somewhere else.

_And he suspects nothing? _it asked.

Another voice, one I almost recognized, answered at my shoulder._Nothing, my is as ignorant as the rest._

I looked over, but no one was there. The speaker was invisible.

_Deception upon deception, _the thing in the pit mused aloud_. Excellent._

_Truly, my lord, _said the voice next to me, _you are well-named the Crooked One. But was it really necessary? I could have brought you what I stole directly —_

_You? _the monster said in scorn. _You have already shown your limits. You would have failed me completely had I not intervened._

_But, my lord—_

_Peace, little servant. Our six months have bought us much. Zeus's anger has grown. Poseidon has played his most desperate card. Now we shall use it against him. Shortly you shall have the reward you wish, and your revenge. As soon as both items are delivered into my hands ... but wait. She is here._

_What? _The invisible servant suddenly sounded tense. _You summoned her, my lord?_

_No. The full force of the monsters attention was now pouring over me, freezing me in place. Blast her father's blood— s__he is too changeable, too unpredictable. The girl brought herself here._

_Impossible! _the servant cried.

_For a weakling such as you, perhaps, _the voice snarled. Then its cold power turned back on me. _So ... you wish to dream of your quest, young half-blood? Then I will oblige._

The scene changed.

I was standing in a vast throne room with black marble walls and bronze floors. The empty, horrid throne was made from human bones fused together. Standing at the foot of the dais was my mother, frozen in shimmering golden light, her arms outstretched.

I tried to step toward her, but my legs wouldn't move. I reached for her, only to realize that my hands were withering to bones. Grinning skeletons in Greek armor crowded around me, draping me with silk robes, wreathing my head with laurels that smoked with Chimera poison, burning into my scalp.

The evil voice began to laugh. _Hail, the conquering hero!_

* * *

I woke with a start. The Crooked One? Kronos? He framed me! Stupid pit-man. Yes, that horrible name is sticking.

Grover was shaking my shoulder. "The truck's stopped," he said. "We think they're coming to check on the animals."

"Hide!" Justin hissed.

He had it easy. He just put on her magic cap and disappeared. Grover and I had to dive behind feed sacks and hope we looked like turnips. The trailer doors creaked open. Sunlight and heat poured in.

"Man!" one of the truckers said, waving his hand in front of his ugly nose. "I wish I hauled appliances." He climbed inside and poured some water from a jug into the animals' dishes.

"You hot, big boy?" he asked the lion, then splashed the rest of the bucket right in the lion's face.

The lion roared in indignation.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," the man said.

Next to me, under the turnip sacks, Grover tensed. For a peace-loving herbivore, he looked downright murderous.

The trucker threw the antelope a squashed-looking Happy Meal bag. He smirked at the zebra. "How ya doin', Stripes? Least we'll be getting rid of you this stop. You like magic shows? You're gonna love this one. They're gonna saw you in half!"

The zebra, wild-eyed with fear, looked straight at me. There was no sound, but as clear as day, I heard it say: Free me, My lady. Please.

I'd heard the zebra talk, makes sence Poseidon created horses. But was a zebra close enough to a horse? Nevertheless I nodded at his request. There was a loud knock, knock, knock on the side of the trailer. The trucker inside with us yelled, "What do you want, Eddie?"

A voice outside—it must've been Eddie's—shouted back, "Maurice? What'd ya say?"

"What are you banging for?"

Knock, knock, knock.

Outside, Eddie yelled, "What banging?"

Our guy Maurice rolled his eyes and went back outside, cursing at Eddie for being an idiot. A second later, Justin appeared next to me and pulled me up. He must've done the banging to get Maurice out of the trailer. He said, "This transport business can't be legal."

"No kidding," Grover said. He paused, as if listening. "The lion says these guys are animal smugglers!"

That's right, the zebra's voice said in my mind.

"So does the Zebra." I added.

"We've got to free them!" Grover said. He and Justin both looked at me, waiting for my lead. The zebra said, Open my cage, Milady. Please. I'll be fine after that.

Outside, Eddie and Maurice were still yelling at each other, but I knew they'd be coming inside to torment the animals again any minute. I grabbed Riptide and slashed the lock off the zebra's cage.

The zebra burst out. It turned to me and bowed. Thank you, Milady. Grover held up his hands and said something to the zebra in goat talk, like a blessing.

Just as Maurice was poking his head back inside to check out the noise, the zebra leaped over him and into the street. There was yelling and screaming and cars honking. We rushed to the doors of the trailer in time to see the zebra galloping down a wide boulevard lined with hotels and casinos and neon signs. We'd just released a zebra in Las Vegas.

Maurice and Eddie ran after it, with a few policemen running after them, shouting, "Hey! You need a permit for that!"

"Now would be a good time to leave," Justin said.

"The other animals first," Grover said.

I cut the locks with my sword. Grover raised his hands and spoke the same goat-blessing he'd used for the zebra.

"Good luck," I told the animals. The antelope and the lion burst out of their cages and went off together into the streets. Some tourists screamed. Most just backed off and took pictures, probably thinking it was some kind of stunt by one of the casinos.

"Will the animals be okay?" I asked Grover. "I mean, the desert and all—"

"Don't worry," he said. "I placed a satyr's sanctuary on them."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning they'll reach the wild safely," he said. "They'll find water, food, shade, whatever they need until they find a safe place to live."

"Why can't you place a blessing like that on us?" I asked.

"It only works on wild animals."

"So it would only affect Andrea," Justin reasoned.

"Hey! Well... maybe."

Justin smiled at me, "Come on. Let's get out of this filthy truck."

We stumbled out into the desert afternoon. It was a hundred and ten degrees, easy, and we must've looked like deep-fried vagrants, but everybody was too interested in the wild animals to pay us much attention. We passed the Monte Carlo and the MGM. We passed pyramids, a pirate ship, and the Statue of Liberty, which was a pretty small replica, but still made me homesick.

I wasn't sure what we were looking for. Maybe just a place to get out of the heat for a few minutes, find a sandwich and a glass of lemonade, make a new plan for getting west. We must have taken a wrong turn, because we found ourselves at a dead end, standing in front of the Lotus Hotel and Casino. The entrance was a huge neon flower, the petals lighting up and blinking. No one was going in or out, but the glittering chrome doors were open, spilling out air-conditioning that smelled like flowers—lotus blossom, maybe.

The doorman smiled at us. "Hey, kids. You look tired. You want to come in and sit down?"

I'd learned to be suspicious, the last week or so. I figured anybody might be a monster or a god. You just couldn't tell. But this guy was normal. One look at him, and I could see. Besides, I was so relieved to hear somebody who sounded sympathetic that I nodded and said we'd love to come in. My focus flickered.

Inside, we took one look around, and Grover said, "Whoa."

The whole lobby was a giant game room. And I'm not talking about cheesy old Pac-Man games or slot machines. There was an indoor waterslide snaking around the glass elevator, which went straight up at least forty floors. There was a climbing wall on the side of one building, and an indoor bungee-jumping bridge. There were virtual-reality suits with working laser guns. And hundreds of video games, each one the size of a widescreen TV. Basically, you name it, this place had it. There were a few other kids playing, but not that many. No waiting for any of the games. There were waitresses and snack bars all around, serving every kind of food you can imagine.

"Hey!" a bellhop said. At least I guessed he was a bellhop. He wore a white-and-yellow Hawaiian shirt with lotus designs, shorts, and flip-flops. "Welcome to the Lotus Casino. Here's your room key."

I stammered, "Um, but..."

"No, no," he said, laughing. "The bill's taken care of. No extra charges, no tips. Just go on up to the top floor, room 4001. If you need anything, like extra bubbles for the hot tub, or skeet targets for the shooting range, or whatever, just call the front desk. Here are your Lotus Cash cards. They work in the restaurants and on all the games and rides."

He handed us each a green plastic credit card. I knew there must be some mistake. Obviously he thought we were some millionaire's kids. But I took the card and said, "How much is on here?"

His eyebrows knit together. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, when does it run out of cash?"

He laughed. "Oh, you're making a joke. Hey, that's cool. Enjoy your stay."

_What?_

We took the elevator upstairs and checked out our room. It was a suite with three separate bedrooms and a bar stocked with candy, sodas, and chips. A hotline to room service. Fluffy towels and water beds with feather pillows. A big-screen television with satellite and high-speed Internet. The balcony had its own hot tub, and sure enough, there was a skeet-shooting machine and a shotgun, so you could launch clay pigeons right out over the Las Vegas skyline and plug them with your gun. I didn't see how that could be legal, but I thought it was pretty cool. The view over the Strip and the desert was amazing, though I doubted we'd ever find time to look at the view with a room like this.

"Oh, wow," Justin said. "This place is ..."

"Sweet," Grover said. "Absolutely sweet."

There were clothes in the closet, and they fit me. I frowned, thinking that this was a little strange. I threw Ares's backpack in the trash can. Wouldn't need that anymore. When we left, I could just charge a new one at the hotel store.

I took a shower, which felt awesome after a week of grimy travel. I changed clothes, ate a bag of chips, drank a Coke, a water bottle, and came out feeling better than I had in a long time. In the back of my mind, some small problem kept nagging me. I'd had a dream or something ... I needed to talk to my friends. But I was sure it could wait.

I came out of the bedroom and found that Justin and Grover had also showered and changed clothes. Grover was eating potato chips to his heart's content, while Justin cranked up the National Geographic Channel.

"All those stations," I told him, "and you turn on National Geographic. Are you insane?"

"It's interesting."

"I feel good," Grover said. "I love this place."

Without his even realizing it, the wings sprouted out of his shoes and lifted him a foot off the ground, then back down again.

"So what now?" Justin asked. "Sleep?"

Grover and I looked at each other and grinned. We both held up our green plastic Lotus Cash cards.

"Play time," I said.

I couldn't remember the last time I had so much fun. I came from a relatively poor family. Our idea of a splurge was eating out at Burger King and renting a video. And as I said I only ever hoped to get out of there. A five-star Vegas hotel? Forget it.

I bungee-jumped the lobby four times, did the waterslide, snowboarded the artificial ski slope, and played virtual-reality laser tag and FBI sharpshooter. I saw Grover a few times, going from game to game. He really liked the reverse hunter thing—where the deer go out and shoot the rednecks.

I saw Justin playing trivia games and other brainiac stuff. They had this huge 3-D Sim game where you build your own city, and you could actually see the holographic buildings rise on the display board. I didn't think much of it, but Justin loved it. I'm not sure when I first realized something was wrong.

Probably, it was when I noticed the guy standing next to me at VR sharpshooters. He was about thirteen, I guess, but his clothes were weird. I thought he was some Elvis impersonator's son. He wore bell-bottom jeans and a red T-shirt with black piping, and his hair was permed and gelled like a New Jersey girl's on homecoming night.

We played a game of sharpshooters together and he said, "Groovy, man. Been here two weeks, and the games keep getting better and better."

Groovy?

Later, while we were talking, I said something was "sick,"(I never really talked like that) and he looked at me kind of startled, as if he'd never heard the word used that way before. He said his name was Darrin, but as soon as I started asking him questions he got bored with me and started to go back to the computer screen.

I said, "Hey, Darrin?"

"What?"

"What year is it?"

He frowned at me. "In the game?"

"No. In real life."

He had to think about it. "1977."

"What?"

We in las Vegas, we were at the lotus hotel and casino... wait, lotus... a myth from somewhere. The lotus eaters! They were a race of people from an island near North Africa, filled with lotus plants. The plants are narcotic and addictive, causing people to sleep in peaceful apathy. Those that ate the lotus plant lost all their will and memory.

"Hey, man. Bad vibes. I got a game happening."

Then it occurred to me: how long had I been here? It seemed like only a couple of hours, but was it?

I tried to remember why we were here. We were going to Los Angeles. We were supposed to find the entrance to the Underworld. My mother ... for a scary second, I had trouble remembering her name. Sally. Sally Jackson. I had to find her. I had to stop Hades from causing World War III.

I found Justin still building his city.

"Come on," I told him. "We've got to get out of here."

No response.

I shook him. "Justin?"

He looked up, annoyed. "What?

"We need to leave."

"Leave? What are you talking about? I've just got the towers—"

"This place is a trap."

He didn't respond until I shook him again. "What?"

"Listen. The Underworld. Our quest!"

"Oh, come on, Andrea. Just a few more minutes."

I wedged myself between Justin and the sims game and stared straight into his grey eyes, "Come on wonder boy, use that brain, there are people here from 1977. Kids who have never aged. You check in, and you stay forever."

"So?" he asked. "Can you imagine a better place?"

He tried to move around me so that he could go back to his game. Losing my patience, I grabbed his wrist and with all my strength yanked him away from the game. It was hard, because he was really attached to his city.

"Hey!" He screamed and tried to wiggle out of my grip, but nobody else even bothered looking at us. They were too busy.

I made him look directly in my eyes, once again. I said, "Spiders. Large, hairy spiders."

That jarred him. His vision cleared. "Oh my gods," he said. "How long have we—"

"I don't know, but we've got to find Grover."

We went searching, and found him still playing Virtual Deer Hunter.

"Grover!" we both shouted.

He said, "Die, human! Die, silly polluting nasty person!"

"Grover!"

He turned the plastic gun on me and started clicking, as if I were just another image from the screen.

_I feel the love, bud._

I looked at Justin, and together we took Grover by the arms and dragged him away. His flying shoes sprang to life and started tugging his legs in the other direction as he shouted, "No! I just got to a new level! No!"

The Lotus bellhop hurried up to us. "Well, now, are you ready for your platinum cards?"

"We're leaving," I told him.

"Such a shame," he said, and I got the feeling that he really meant it, that we'd be breaking his heart if we went. "We just added an entire new floor full of games for platinum-card members."

He held out the cards, and I wanted one. I knew that if I took one, I'd never leave. I'd stay here, happy forever, playing games forever, and soon I'd forget my mom, and my quest, and maybe even my own name. I'd be playing virtual rifleman with groovy Disco Darrin forever.

Grover reached for the card, but Justin yanked back his arm and said, "No, thanks."

Despite the situation I cooed, "Aww...so polite."

We walked toward the door, and as we did, the smell of the food and the sounds of the games seemed to get more and more inviting. I thought about our room upstairs. We could just stay the night, sleep in a real bed for once...

Then we burst through the doors of the Lotus Casino and ran down the sidewalk. It felt like afternoon, about the same time of day we'd gone into the casino, but something was wrong. The weather had completely changed. It was stormy, with heat lightning flashing out in the desert.

Ares's backpack was slung over my shoulder, which was odd, because I was sure I had thrown it in the trash can in room 4001, but at the moment I had other problems to worry about.

I ran to the nearest newspaper stand and read the year first. Thank the gods, it was the same year it had been when we went in. Then I noticed the date: June twentieth.

We had been in the Lotus Casino for five days. We had only one day left until the summer solstice. One day to complete our quest.


	18. Chapter 18

**I am so sorry I have been so busy with school and everything. I hope I still have some readers after my little 'break.' **

**So anyway thanks for the reviews (I AM ALIVE) and enjoy.**

* * *

It was Justin's idea. He loaded us into the back of a Vegas taxi as if we actually had money, and told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."

The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized us up. "That's three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay up front."

"You accept casino debit cards?" Justin asked.

He shrugged. "Some of 'em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em through first."

Justin handed him his green LotusCash card. He looked at it skeptically.

"Swipe it," I invited.

He did. His meter machine started rattling. The lights flashed. Finally an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign. The cigar fell out of the driver's mouth. He looked back at us, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles... uh, Your Highness?"

I raised my eye brows, _Your Highness? Well, I am the daughter of the King of the sea, so I guess he's not that off. _Justin sat up a little straighter. I could tell he liked the "Your Highness" thing. I restrained from making a mocking or rude comment about it and answered the wide-eyed cab driver, "The Santa Monica Pier. Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."

Maybe I shouldn't have told him that. The cab's speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert. On the road, we had plenty of time to talk. I told Justin and Grover about my latest dream, but the details got sketchier the more I tried to remember them. The Lotus Casino seemed to have short-circuited my memory.

Unfortunately, I still remembered all the thing I read on the train ride to the Shopping-Bag-Handle-On-City. Yes, the calculus is alive...in my brain. It really is terrifying.

The even more unfortunate thing is where I remembered Fundamental theorem, I couldn't recall what the invisible servant's voice had sounded like, though I was sure it was somebody I knew. The servant had called the monster in the pit something other than "my lord" ... some special name or title...and I identified the pit-person. (I like pit-person better than pit-man, now. For short I'll call him PP.)

"The Silent One?" Justin suggested. "The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades."

"Uh, no, that's not right ..." I said.

"That throne room sounds like Hades's," Grover said. "That's the way it's usually described."

I shook my head. "Something's wrong. The throne room wasn't the main part of the dream. And that voice from the pit ... I don't know. It just didn't feel like a god's voice."

PP didn't sound like a god, or at least like Ares. PP also lived in a pit (I don't think he's a hobo, well not a mortal one). I was getting frustrated, the real name of PP was on the tip of my tongue. However, Justin's eyes widened.

"What?" I asked excited and hoping to get rid of the dreaded feeling of not being able to remember something.

"Oh ... nothing. I was just—No, it _has _to be Hades. Maybe he sent this thief, this invisible person, to get the master bolt, and something went wrong—"

"Like what?" Grover asked.

"I—I don't know," he said. "But if he stole Zeus's symbol of power from Olympus, and the gods were hunting him, I mean, a lot of things could go wrong. So this thief had to hide the bolt, or he lost it somehow. Anyway, he failed to bring it to Hades. That's what the voice said in your dream, right? The guy failed. That would explain what the Furies were searching for when they came after us on the bus. Maybe they thought we had retrieved the bolt."

_But if he failed wouldn't one of the gods Uncle Sparky sent out to get it have it? _I looked at Justin to ask another question and realised he was deadly pale, _I wonder what's__ wrong with him._

"But if I'd already retrieved the bolt," I said, "why would I be traveling to the Underworld?"

"To threaten Hades," Grover suggested. "To bribe or blackmail him into getting your mom back."

I snorted,"You have evil thoughts for a goat. I must say, I am impressed."

"Why, thank you."

"But the thing in the pit said it was waiting for _two _items," I said. "If the master bolt is one, what's the other? A magic strip of bacon?"

Grover shook his head, clearly mystified. Justin was looking at me as if he knew my next question, and was silently willing me not to ask it.

"You have an idea what might be in that pit, don't you?" I asked him. "I mean, if it isn't Hades?"

"Andrea ... let's not talk about it. Because if it isn't Hades ... No. It has to be Hades."

Wasteland rolled by. We passed a sign that said CALIFORNIA STATE LINE, 12 MILES.

I got the feeling I was missing one simple, critical piece of information. It was like when I stared at a common word I should know, but I couldn't make sense of it because one or two letters were floating around. The more I thought about my quest, the more I was sure that confronting Hades wasn't the real answer. There was something else going on, something even more dangerous. And that's were PP came in.

The problem was: we were hurtling toward the Underworld at ninety-five miles an hour, betting that Hades had the master bolt. If we got there and found out we were wrong, we wouldn't have time to correct ourselves. The solstice deadline would pass and war would begin.

But now I wasn't too sure it's Hades who was 'the god who has turned'. Because when I came in contact with his minions they were looking for something...And PP was waiting for _two _items, the master bolt and... Hades' helm of Darkness. It made sence PP wanted _two _of the big three's symbols of power and left my dad's to frame him and me. But who was PP and who was his minion.

I was going to my theory to Justin and Grover, but something stopped me. My Mom. She was in the Underworld. And I had to get her back. So, I stayed silent and kept my new found information to myself.

"The answer is in the Underworld," Justin assured me. "You saw spirits of the dead, Andrea. There's only one place that could be. We're doing the right thing."

He tried to boost our morale by suggesting clever strategies for getting into the Land of the Dead, but my heart wasn't in it. There were just too many unknown factors. It was like cramming for a test without knowing the subject. Not that I had done that...a lot. At one point I started to ignore him and stared blankly out the window trying to figure out who was PP.

The cab sped west. Every gust of wind through Death Valley sounded like a spirit of the dead. Every time the brakes hissed on an eighteen-wheeler, it reminded me of Echidna's reptilian voice.

At sunset, the taxi dropped us at the beach in Santa Monica. It looked exactly the way L.A. beaches do in the movies, only it smelled worse. There were carnival rides lining the Pier, palm trees lining the sidewalks, homeless guys sleeping in the sand dunes, and surfer dudes waiting for the perfect wave.

Grover, Justin, and I walked down to the edge of the surf.

"What now?" Justin asked.

The Pacific was turning gold in the setting sun. I thought about how long it had been since I'd stood on the beach at Montauk, on the opposite side of the country, looking out at a different sea.

I've always wonder while I was studying Latin, how could there be a god who could control all that? Two-thirds of the earth's surface was covered in water. How could I be the daughter of someone who was that powerful?

I stepped into the surf.

"Andrea?" Justin said. "What are you doing?"

I kept walking, up to my waist, then my chest.

He called after me, "You know how polluted that water is? There's all kinds of toxic—"

That's when my head went under.

I held my breath at first. It's difficult to intentionally inhale water. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore. I gasped. Sure enough, I could breathe normally.

I walked down into the shoals. I shouldn't have been able to see through the murk, but somehow I could tell where everything was. I could sense the rolling texture of the bottom. I could make out sand-dollar colonies dotting the sandbars. I could even see the currents, warm and cold streams swirling together.

I felt something rub against my leg. I looked down and almost shot out of the water like a ballistic missile. Sliding along beside me was a five-foot-long mako shark.

But the thing wasn't attacking. It was nuzzling me. Heeling like a dog.

Tentatively, I touched its dorsal fin. It bucked a little, as if inviting me to hold tighter. I grabbed the fin with both hands. It took off, pulling me along. The shark carried me down into the darkness. It deposited me at the edge of the ocean proper, where the sand bank dropped off into a huge chasm. It was like standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon at midnight, not being able to see much, but knowing the void was right there.

The surface shimmered maybe a hundred and fifty feet above. I knew I should've been crushed by the pressure. Then again, I shouldn't have been able to breathe. I wondered if there was a limit to how deep I could go, if I could sink straight to the bottom of the Pacific, I probably could.

Then I saw something glimmering in the darkness below, growing bigger and brighter as it rose toward me. A woman's voice, like my mother's, called: "Andrea Jackson."

As she got closer, her shape became clearer. She had flowing black hair, a dress made of green silk. Light flickered around her, and her eyes were a distractingly beautiful shade of sea green and the stallion-sized sea horse she was riding was kept inching it's head forward, as if it would give her no better pleasure than for me to stroke her nose.

She dismounted as I placed a hand of the sea horse's nose. The sea horse nuzzled me much like the mako shark had before whisking off and started playing something that looked like tag with the Mako shark, who had previously stayed close to my side like he was glued there.

The underwater lady smiled at me. "You've come far, Andrea Jackson. Well done."

I wasn't quite sure what to do, so I dipped my head down, respectively. "You're the woman who spoke to me in the Mississippi River."

"Yes, child. I am a Nereid, a spirit of the sea. It was not easy to appear so far upriver, but the naiads, my freshwater cousins, helped sustain my life force. They honor Lord Poseidon, though they do not serve in his court."

"And ... you serve in my dad's court?"

She nodded. "It has been many years since a child of the Sea God has been born. We have watched you with great interest."

Suddenly I remembered faces in the waves off Montauk Beach when I was a little boy, reflections of smiling women. Like so many of the weird things in my life, I'd never given it much thought before.

"If my father is so interested in me," I said, "why isn't he here? Why doesn't he speak to me?"

A cold current rose out of the depths.

"Do not judge the Lord of the Sea too harshly," the Nereid told me. "He stands at the brink of an unwanted war. He has much to occupy his time. Besides, he is forbidden to help you directly. The gods may not show such favoritism."

"Even to their own children?"

"Especially to them. The gods can work by indirect influence only. That is why I give you a warning, and a gift."

She held out her hand. Three white pearls flashed in her palm.

"I know you journey to Hades's realm," she said. "Few mortals have ever done this and survived: Orpheus, who had great music skill; Hercules, who had great strength; Houdini, who could escape even the depths of Tartarus. Do you have these talents?"

"No, ma'am."

"Ah, but you have something else, Andrea. You have gifts you have only begun to know and some you know, but have not viewed as gifts, such as your ability to look at the big picture when others only see what's only in front of them... The oracles have foretold a great and terrible future for you, should you survive to manhood. Poseidon would not have you die before your time, he doesn't want another daughter to go before their time. Therefore take these, and when you are in need, smash a pearl at your feet."

"What will happen? And what do you mean 'he doesn't want another daughter to go before their time'?"

"That," she said ignoring my last question, I guess I'll just ask Justin about it, "depends on the need. But remember: what belongs to the sea will always return to the sea."

"What about the warning?"

Her eyes flickered with green light. "Go with what your heart tells you, or you will lose all. Hades feeds on doubt and hopelessness. He will trick you if he can, make you mistrust your own judgment. Once you are in his realm, he will never willingly let you leave. Keep faith. Good luck, Andrea Jackson."

She summoned her sea horse and rode toward the void.

"Wait!" I called. "At the river, you said not to trust the gifts. What gifts? These Gifts?"

I said the last question with a small smile and a joking tone. Then, I smacked myself (and not mentally) and told myself to be serious.

"Good-bye, young hero," she called back, her voice fading into the depths. "You must listen to your heart." She became a speck of glowing green, and then she was gone.

I wanted to follow her down into the darkness. I wanted to see the court of Poseidon. But I looked up at the sunset darkening on the surface. My friends were waiting. We had so little time...

I looked back at where she disappeared, _maybe one day._

I kicked upward toward the shore. When I reached the beach, my clothes dried instantly. I told Grover and Justin what had happened, and showed them the pearls.

Justin grimaced. "No gift comes without a price."

"They were free." I snapped at him.

"No." He shook his head. "'There is no such thing as a free lunch.' That's an ancient Greek saying that translated pretty well into American. There will be a price. You wait."

"So what price did you have to pay when _your _godly parent gave you that _stupid cap," _I whispered this with a glare that said 'say one more thing bad against my dad and your dead'. Justin just turned his attention to the ground, I don't know if he was ashamed or not.

Grover called my attention and asked if I wanted to carry the pearls. I wordlessly went back to glaring at Justin and slipped the three pearls in my pocket. I also buried On that happy thought (gods help me for Chiron is being...an influance), we turned our backs on the sea.

With some spare change from Ares's backpack, we took the bus into West Hollywood. I showed the driver the Underworld address slip I'd taken from Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium, but he'd never heard of DOA Recording Studios.

"You remind me of somebody I saw on TV," he told me. "You a child actor or something?"

"Uh, yes. My limo broke down little ways from here and I must take this bus if I want to get to my next audition on time."

"From what movie?"

"It wasn't a very big hit so I am surprised you recognize me, it's called _The lightning thief,_" My hair acted as a curtain and surrounded half of my face, so he could see my smirk.

"What's it about?"

"The greek gods and a demigod who gets framed for stealing Zeus' master bolt."

"Sounds good, maybe I well check it out."

My smirk turned into a smile and I tucked my hair behind my ear, "You should. Just being apart of it was...an awesome experience. It's such a shame that no one knows about it."

He smiled back. We thanked him and got off quickly at the next stop. We wandered for miles on foot, looking for DOA. Nobody seemed to know where it was. It didn't appear in the phone book.

Twice, we ducked into alleys to avoid cop cars.

I froze in front of an appliance-store window because a television was playing an interview with somebody who looked very familiar—my stepdad, Smelly Gabe. He was talking to Barbara Walters—I mean, as if he were some kind of huge celebrity. She was interviewing him in our apartment, in the middle of a poker game, and there was a young blond lady sitting next to him, patting his hand.

I also saw Aunt Rosie standing in the background look at him in disgust. Before, she walked into my room.

A fake tear glistened on his cheek. He was saying, "Honest, Ms. Walters, if it wasn't for Sugar here, my grief counselor, I'd be a wreck. My stepdaughter took everything I cared about. My wife ... my Camaro ... I—I'm sorry. I have trouble talking about it."

I watched the background waiting for my aunt to reappear. And she did. With a box in her hand, a moving box. I strained my eyes to see what was in it until Barbara Walters took over the screen.

"There you have it, America." Barbara Walters turned to the camera. "A man torn apart. An adolescent girl with serious issues. Let me show you, again, the last known photo of this troubled young fugitive, taken a week ago in Denver."

The screen cut to a grainy shot of me, Justin, and Grover standing outside the Colorado diner, talking to Ares.

"Who are the other children in this photo?" Barbara Walters asked dramatically. "Who is the man with them? Is Andrea Jackson a delinquent, a terrorist, or perhaps the brainwashed victim of a frightening new cult? When we come back, we chat with a leading child psychologist. Stay tuned, America."

"C'mon," Grover told me. He and Justin hauled me away before I could punch a hole in the appliance-store window.

It got dark, and hungry-looking characters started coming out on the streets to play. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a New Yorker. And I grew up on 'the wrong side of the tracks'. I don't scare easy.

Yet, L.A. had a totally different feel from New York. Back home, everything seemed close. It didn't matter how big the city was, you could get anywhere without getting lost. The street pattern and the subway made sense. There was a system to how things worked. A kid could be safe as long as she wasn't stupid.

L.A. wasn't like that. It was spread out, chaotic, hard to move around. It reminded me of Ares. It wasn't enough for L.A. to be big; it had to prove it was big by being loud and strange and difficult to navigate, too.

I didn't know how we were ever going to find the entrance to the Underworld by tomorrow, the summer solstice. We walked past gangbangers, bums, and street hawkers, who looked at us like they were trying to figure if we were worth the trouble of mugging.

As we hurried passed the entrance of an alley, a voice from the darkness said, "Hey, you."

Like an idiot, I stopped.

Before I knew it, we were surrounded. A gang of kids had circled us. Six of them in all—white kids with expensive clothes and mean faces. Like the kids at Yancy Academy: rich brats playing at being bad boys.

I heard Justin move beside me, out of the corner of my eye I saw his dagger in his hand. When the dagger appeared out of nowhere, the kids backed off, but their leader was either really stupid or really brave, because he kept coming at us with a switchblade.

He looked me up and down, "Well, Hello there."

I raised my eyebrows as he started playing with his switchblade trying to look cool. And failing. It took all I had to not laugh at him,"Hi."

Justin than swung at him. The kid yelped. But he must've been one hundred per cent mortal, because the blade passed harmlessly right through his chest. He looked down. "What the ..."

I figured we had about three seconds before his shock turned to anger. I took Justin and Grover's hand and started running, pulling them along. We pushed two kids out of the way and raced down the street, not knowing where we were going. We turned a sharp corner.

"There!" Justin shouted.

Only one store on the block looked open, its windows glaring with neon. The sign above the door said something like CRSTUY'S WATRE BDE ALPACE.

"Crusty's Water Bed Palace?" Grover translated.

It didn't sound like a place I'd ever go except in an emergency (or at all), but this definitely qualified. We burst through the doors, ran behind a water bed, and ducked. A split second later, the gang kids ran past outside.

"I think we lost them," Grover panted.

A voice behind us boomed, "Lost who?"

We all jumped.

Standing behind us was a guy who looked like a raptor in a leisure suit. He was at least seven feet tall, with absolutely no hair. He had gray, leathery skin, thick-lidded eyes, and a cold, reptilian smile. He moved toward us slowly, but I got the feeling he could move fast if he needed to.

His suit might've come from the Lotus Casino. It belonged back in the seventies, big-time. The shirt was silk paisley, unbuttoned halfway down his hairless chest. The lapels on his velvet jacket were as wide as landing strips. The silver chains around his neck—I couldn't even count them. My focus flickered, I felt danger.

"I'm Crusty," he said, with a tartar-yellow smile.

I resisted the urge to say, _Yes, you are._

"Sorry to barge in," I told him. "We were just, um, browsing."

I inched toward the door.

"You mean hiding from those no-good kids," he grumbled. "They hang around every night. I get a lot of people in here, thanks to them. Say, you want to look at a water bed?"

I was about to say _No, thanks, _when he put a huge paw on my shoulder and steered me deeper into the showroom.

There was every kind of water bed you could imagine: different kinds of wood, different patterns of sheets; queen-size, king-size, emperor-of-the-universe-size.

"This is my most popular model." Crusty spread his hands proudly over a bed covered with black satin sheets, with built-in Lava Lamps on the headboard. The mattress vibrated, so it looked like oil-flavored Jell-O.

"Million-hand massage," Crusty told us. "Go on, try it out. Shoot, take a nap. I don't care. No business today, any-way."

"Um," I said, "I don't think ..."

"Million-hand massage!" Grover cried, and dove in. "Oh, you guys! This is cool."

"Grover." I said through my teeth and motion him to get off the bed. But he didn't see.

"Hmm," Crusty said, stroking his leathery chin. "Almost, almost."

"Almost what?" I asked.

He looked at Justin. "Do me a favor and try this one over here. Might fit."

Justin said, "But what—"

He patted his reassuringly on the shoulder and led his over to the Safari Deluxe model with teakwood lions carved into the frame and a leopard-patterned comforter. All while I was trying to get Grover off the water bed, thinking Justin could handle himself. When Justin didn't want to lie down, Crusty pushed him.

"Hey!" he protested.

Crusty snapped his fingers._"Ergo!"_

Ropes sprang from the sides of the bed, lashing around Justin, holding his to the mattress. Grover tried to get up, but ropes sprang from his black-satin bed, too, and lashed him down.

"N-not c-c-cool!" he yelled, his voice vibrating from the million-hand massage. "N-not c-cool a-at all!"

The giant looked at Justin, then turned toward me and grinned. "Almost, darn it."

I tried to step away, but his hand shot out and clamped around the back of my neck. "Whoa, kid. Don't worry. We'll find you one in a sec."

"Let my friends go."

"Oh, sure I will. But I got to make them fit, first."

"What do you mean?"

"All the beds are exactly six feet, see? Your friends are too short. Got to make them fit."

Justin and Grover kept struggling.

"Can't stand imperfect measurements," Crusty muttered._"Ergo!"_

A new set of ropes leaped out from the top and bottom of the beds, wrapping around Grover and Justin's ankles, then around their armpits. The ropes started tightening, pulling my friends from both ends.

"Don't worry," Crusty told me, "These are stretching jobs. Maybe three extra inches on their spines. They might even live. Now why don't we find a bed you like, huh?"

"Andrea!" Grover yelled.

My mind was racing. I knew I couldn't take on this giant water-bed salesman alone. He would snap my neck before I ever got my sword out. I had to trick him some how.

"Your real name's not Crusty, is it?" I asked.

"Legally, it's Procrustes," he admitted.

"The Stretcher," I said. I remembered the story: the giant who'd tried to kill Theseus with excess hospitality on his way to Athens.

"Yeah," the salesman said. "But who can pronounce _Procrustes? _Bad for business. Now 'Crusty,' anybody can say that."

"You're right. It's got a good ring to it."

His eyes lit up. "You think so?"

"Oh, absolutely," I said. "And the workmanship on these beds? Fabulous!"

He grinned hugely, but his fingers didn't loosen on my neck. "I tell my customers that. Every time. Nobody bothers to look at the workmanship. How many built-in Lava Lamp headboards have you seen?"

"None."

"That's right!"

"Well, they are purely remarkable."

"Andrea!" Justin yelled. "What are you doing?"

"Don't mind him," I told Procrustes. "He's impossible and quite annoying."

The giant laughed. "All my customers are. Never six feet exactly. So inconsiderate. And then they complain about the fitting."

"What do you do if they're longer than six feet?"

"Oh, that happens all the time. It's a simple fix."

He let go of my neck, but before I could react, he reached behind a nearby sales desk and brought out a huge double-bladed brass axe.

He said, "I just center the subject as best I can and lop off whatever hangs over on either end."

I forced a smile on my face, "Sensible."

"I'm so glad to come across an intelligent customer!"

The ropes were really stretching my friends now. Justin was turning pale. Grover made gurgling sounds, like a strangled goose.

"So, Crusty ..." I said, keeping my voice light. I glanced at the sales tag on the valentine-shaped Honeymoon Special. I had an idea. "Does this one really have dynamic stabilizers to stop wave motion?"

"Absolutely. Try it out."

"Yeah, maybe I will. But would it work even for a big guy like you? No waves at all?"

"Guaranteed."

"No way."

"Way."

"Show me."

He sat down eagerly on the bed, patted the mattress. "No waves. See?"

I snapped my fingers._"Ergo."_

Ropes lashed around Crusty and flattened him against the mattress.

"Hey!" he yelled.

"Center him just right," I said.

The ropes readjusted themselves at my command. Crusty's whole head stuck out the top. His feet stuck out the bottom.

"No!" he said. "Wait! This is just a demo."

I held Riptide in my hand. "Ah, Crusty you of all people should know how annoying it is when someone doesn't fit ..."

I had no qualms about what I was about to do. If Crusty were human, I couldn't hurt him. But he was a monster, he deserved to turn into dust for a while.

"You drive a hard bargain," he told me. "I'll give you thirty percent off on selected floor models.'"

"I think I'll start with the top." I raised my sword.

"No money down! No interest for six months!"

I swung the sword. Crusty stopped making offers. I cut the ropes on the other beds. Justin and Grover got to their feet, groaning and wincing and cursing me a lot.

"You look taller," I said.

"Very funny," Justin said. "Be faster next time."

I looked at the bulletin board behind Crusty's sales desk. There was an advertisement for Hermes Delivery Service, and another for the All-New Compendium of L.A. Area Monsters—"The only Monstrous Yellow Pages you'll ever need!" Under that, a bright orange flier for DOA Recording Studios, offering commissions for heroes' souls. "We are always looking for new talent!" DOA's address was right underneath with a map.

"Come on," I told my friends.

"Give us a minute," Grover complained. "We were almost stretched to death.'"

"Then you're ready for the Underworld," I said. "It's only a block from here."

* * *

**What's a good theme song for this story?**


	19. Chapter 19

**Beware of Vulgar language.**

**I know people want to kill me for not updating in a while, but I am here now to bring you chapter 19.**

**Thanks for the reviews and enjoy.**

* * *

We stood in the shadows of Valencia Boulevard, looking up at gold letters etched in black marble:DOA RECORDING STUDIOS. Underneath, stenciled on the glass doors:NO SOLICITORS. NO LOITERING. NO LIVING.

It was almost midnight, but the lobby was brightly lit and full of people. Behind the security desk sat a tough-looking guard with sunglasses and an earpiece. I turned to my friends. "Okay. You remember the plan."

Justin said, "What happens if the plan doesn't work?"

"Then I wish you a very happy death."

I took the pearls out of my pocket, the three milky spheres the Nereid had given me in Santa Monica. They didn't seem like much of a backup if something went wrong.

Justin put his hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Andrea. You're right, we'll make it. It'll be fine."

He gave Grover a nudge.

"Oh, right!" he chimed in. "We got this far. We'll find the master bolt and save your mom. No problem."

I looked at them both, and felt really grateful. Only a few minutes before, I'd almost gotten them stretched to death on deluxe water beds, and now they were trying to be brave for my sake, trying to make me feel better. Then I felt guilt claim me, I opened my mouth to tell them my theory that Hades didn't have the master bolt.

But instead I said, "Let's go kick ass."

I slipped the pearls back in my pocket.

We walked inside the DOA lobby.

Music played softly on hidden speakers. The carpet and walls were steel gray. Pencil cactuses grew in the corners like skeleton hands. The furniture was black leather, and every seat was taken. There were people sitting on couches, people standing up, people staring out the windows or waiting for the elevator. Nobody moved, or talked, or did much of anything.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them all just fine, but if I focused on any one of them in particular, they started looking ... transparent. I could see right through their bodies.

The security guard's desk was a raised podium, so we had to look up at him.

He was tall and elegant, with chocolate-colored skin and bleached-blond hair shaved military style. He wore tortoiseshell shades and a silk Italian suit that matched his hair. A black rose was pinned to his lapel under a silver name tag.

But I didn't need the name tag to know who he was, but for now I had to play stupid and act as if I didn't know that Greek Myths were real, "Your name is Charon?"

He leaned across the desk. I couldn't see anything in his glasses except my reflection, but his smile was sweet and cold, like a pythons, right before it eats you.

"What a precious young lady." He had a strange accent—British, maybe, but also as if he had learned English as a second language. "It's amazing that you can read! Now say:_Mr. _Charon."

"Mr. Charon," I said, while biting my tongue, trying not to sass him.

"Well done." He sat back. " How may I help you little dead ones?"

I looked at him as if he was crazy and hoped I was playing the part of a newly deceased person, "We're dead?"

Charon leaned back into his chair as if he was expecting this, "Yes."

"But-"

"We want to go the Underworld," Justin said cutting me off. I sent him a glare, we shouldn't act so casually about being dead. Other probably would be saying 'this is a mistake' or 'I can't be dead', not 'we want to go to the underworld'. Seriously what type of sane person says that.

Charon's mouth twitched. "Well, that's refreshing."

"It is?" he asked.

"Straightforward and honest. No screaming. No 'There must be a mistake, Mr. Charon.' "

He looked us over. "How did you die, then?"

I nudged Grover.

"Oh," he said. "Um ... drowned-"

"Out by the Aliso Beach Pier in Laguna Beach." I cut Grover off, since he was clearly going to be no help. I remembered seeing the pier on the way here, so, I went with it.

"You drowned by a pier?" Charon asked. We nodded.

"We just came from a party," I said looking down at the clothes I got from the Lotus Casino. "There was alcohol and I guess you could say we were a 'little bit tipsy'."

Charon looked mildly impressed.

_"_I don't suppose you have coins for passage. Normally, with adults, you see, I could charge your American Express, or add the ferry price to your last cable bill. But with children ... alas, you never die prepared. Suppose you'll have to take a seat for a few centuries."

"Oh, but we have coins." I set three golden drachmas on the counter, part of the stash I'd found in Crusty's office desk.

"Well, now ..." Charon moistened his lips. "Real drachmas. Real golden drachmas. I haven't seen these in ..."

His fingers hovered greedily over the coins.

We were so close.

Then Charon looked at me. That cold stare behind his glasses seemed to bore a hole through my chest.

Charon leaned forward and took a sniff. "You're not dead. I should've known. You're a godling."

"We have to get to the Underworld," I insisted.

Charon made a growling sound deep in his throat.

Immediately, all the people in the waiting room got up and started pacing, agitated, lighting cigarettes, running hands through their hair, or checking their wristwatches.

"Leave while you can," Charon told us. "I'll just take these and forget I saw you."

He started to go for the coins, but I snatched them back with a mocking giggle.

"No service, no tip." I said sweetly, but my innocent, sweet child act didn't stop the smirk that formed on my face.

Charon growled again—a deep, blood-chilling sound. The spirits of the dead started pounding on the elevator doors.

"It's a shame, too," I sighed. "We had more to offer."

I held up the entire bag from Crusty's stash. I took out a fistful of drachmas and let the coins spill through my fingers.

Charon's growl changed into something more like a lion's purr. "Do you think I can be bought, godling? Eh ... just out of curiosity, how much have you got there?"

"A lot," I said, scooping the coin back into the bag. "I bet Hades doesn't pay you well enough for such hard work."

"Oh, you don't know the half of it. How would you like to babysit these spirits all day? Always 'Please don't let me be dead' or 'Please let me across for free.' I haven't had a pay raise in three thousand years. Do you imagine suits like this come cheap?"

"You deserve better," I agreed. "A little appreciation. Respect. Good pay."

With each word, I throw the bag of drachmas in the air before catching it.

Charon glanced down at his silk Italian jacket, as if imagining himself in something even better. "I must say, lass, you're making some sense now. Just a little."

I took a coin out of the bag and began filling with it, "Just a little? Such a shame, because I hoped to get rid of some weight. This bag does get awfully heavy after a while."

To stress my point I dropped the bag with a thud. I saw _Mr. _Charon was about to creak, sighting I picked the bag back up and dropped it to my side while in my hand. "It really is a shame. I also could've mentioned a pay raise while I was talking to Hades."

He sighed. "The boat's almost full, anyway. I might as well add you three and be off."

He stood, I handed him the bag of our money, and he said, "Come along."

We pushed through the crowd of waiting spirits, who started grabbing at our clothes like the wind, their voices whispering things I couldn't make out. Charon shoved them out of the way, grumbling, "Freeloaders."

I glanced back the transparent people and dropped the $63. I had collected the money from pickpocketing in case we needed it on our quest. But... they need it more.

He escorted us into the elevator, which was already crowded with souls of the dead, each one holding a green boarding pass. Charon grabbed two spirits who were trying to get on with us and pushed them back into the lobby.

"Right. Now, no one get any ideas while I'm gone," he announced to the waiting room. "And if anyone moves the dial off my easy-listening station again, I'll make sure you're here for another thousand years. Understand?"

He shut the doors. He put a key card into a slot in the elevator panel and we started to descend.

"What happens to the spirits waiting in the lobby?" Justin asked.

"Nothing," Charon said.

"For how long?"

"Forever, or until I'm feeling generous."

"Oh," he said. "That's ... fair."

Charon raised an eyebrow. "Whoever said death was fair, young man? Wait until it's your turn. You'll die soon enough, where you're going."

"We'll get out alive," I said.

"Ha."

I got a sudden dizzy feeling. We weren't going down anymore, but forward. The air turned misty. Spirits around me started changing shape. Their modern clothes flickered, turning into gray hooded robes. The floor of the elevator began swaying.

I blinked hard. When I opened my eyes, Charon's creamy Italian suit had been replaced by a long black robe. His tortoiseshell glasses were gone. Where his eyes should've been were empty sockets—like Ares's eyes, except Charon's were totally dark, full of night and death and despair.

Charming.

He saw me looking, and said, "Well?"

"Dang, you-" I was cut off my Justin placing his hand over my mouth, to stop me from insulting _Mr. _Charon.

I thought he was grinning, but that wasn't it. The flesh of his face was becoming transparent, letting me see straight through to his skull.

The floor kept swaying.

Grover said, "I think I'm getting seasick."

"I think I am going to be hell-sick," I processed my joke before shaking my head. "Not my best."

When I blinked again, the elevator wasn't an elevator anymore. We were standing in a wooden barge. Charon was poling us across a dark, oily river, swirling with bones, dead fish, and other, stranger things—plastic dolls, crushed car nations, soggy diplomas with gilt edges.

"The River Styx," Justin murmured. "It's so ..."

"Polluted," Charon said. "For thousands of years, you humans have thrown in everything as you come across—hopes, dreams, wishes that never came true. Irresponsible waste management, if you ask me."

I looked over the boat at the diplomas again, one broke out of the group and started floating towards me. I strained my eyes to see the name. Then, took a step back when I saw it, _Alejandrine Jackson_.

It was true I had given up hope to get into a good college a long time ago, but looking around the river of broken hopes made me reconsider. Right there I promised my self I would graduate high school at the top of my class and get into an Ivy league school or at least a good college. I heard a bubbling sound and turned back to my diploma and saw it disappear from the river with a small flash.

I smiled.

Mist curled off the filthy water. Above us, almost lost in the gloom, was a ceiling of stalactites. Ahead, the far shore glimmered with greenish light, the color of poison.

Panic closed up my throat. What was I doing here? These people around me ... they were dead.

Don't get me wrong I have expected this much. But still... I didn't like seeing them. It _scared_ me.

Without thinking, I grabbed hold of Justin's hand. Under normal circumstances, this would've embarrassed me, but I wanted reassurance that somebody else was alive on this boat. I found myself muttering a prayer, though I wasn't sure who I was praying to. Down here, only one god mattered, and he was the one I had come to face.

The shoreline of the Underworld came into view. Craggy rocks and black volcanic sand stretched inland about a hundred yards to the base of a high stone wall, which marched off in either direction as far as we could see. A sound came from somewhere nearby in the green gloom, echoing off the stones—the howl of a large animal.

"Old Three-Face is hungry," Charon said. His smile turned skeletal in the greenish light. "Bad luck for you, godlings."

The bottom of our boat slid onto the black sand. The dead began to disembark. A woman holding a little girl's hand. An old man and an old woman hobbling along arm in arm. A boy no older than I was, shuffling silently along in his gray robe.

Charon said, "I'd wish you luck, mate, but there isn't any down here. Mind you, don't forget to mention my pay raise."

He counted our golden coins into his pouch, then took up his pole. He warbled something that sounded like a Barry Manilow song as he ferried the empty barge back across the river.

We followed the spirits up a well-worn path.

I'm not sure what I was expecting—Pearly Gates, or a big black portcullis, or something. But the entrance to the Underworld looked like a cross between airport security and the Jersey Turnpike.

There were three separate entrances under one huge black archway that said YOU ARE NOW ENTERING EREBUS. Each entrance had a pass-through metal detector with security cameras mounted on top. Beyond this were tollbooths manned by black-robed ghouls like Charon.

The howling of the hungry animal was really loud now, but I couldn't see where it was coming from. The three-headed dog, Cerberus, who was supposed to guard Hades's door, was nowhere to be seen.

The dead queued up in the three lines, two marked ATTENDANT ON DUTY, and one marked EZ DEATH. The EZ DEATH line was moving right along. The other two were crawling.

"What do you figure?" I asked Justin.

"The fast line must go straight to the Asphodel Fields," she said. "No contest. They don't want to risk judgment from the court, because it might go against them."

"There's a court for dead people?"

"Yeah. Three judges. They switch around who sits on the bench. King Minos, Thomas Jefferson, Shakespeare—people like that. Sometimes they look at a life and decide that person needs a special reward—the Fields of Elysium. Sometimes they decide on punishment. But most people, well, they just lived. Nothing special, good or bad. So they go to the Asphodel Fields."

"And do what?"

Grover said, "Imagine standing in a wheat field in Kansas. Forever."

"Harsh," I said.

"Not as harsh as that," Grover muttered. "Look."

A couple of black-robed ghouls had pulled aside one spirit and were frisking him at the security desk. The face of the dead man looked vaguely familiar.

"He's that preacher who made the news, remember?" Grover asked.

"Oh, yeah." I did remember now. We'd seen him on TV a couple of times at the Yancy Academy dorm. He was this annoying televangelist from upstate New York who'd raised millions of dollars for orphanages and then got caught spending the money on stuff for his mansion, like gold-plated toilet seats, and an indoor putt-putt golf course. He'd died in a police chase when his "Lamborghini for the Lord" went off a cliff.

I said, "What're they doing to him?"

"Special punishment from Hades," Grover guessed. "The really bad people get his personal attention as soon as they arrive. The Fur—the Kindly Ones will set up an eternal torture for him."

The thought of the Furies made me shudder. I realized I was in their home territory now. Old Mrs. Dodds would be licking her lips with anticipation.

"But if he's a preacher," I said, "and he believes in a different hell..."

Grover shrugged. "Who says he's seeing this place the way we're seeing it? Humans see what they want to see. You're very stubborn—er, persistent, that way."

"Grover, I find that mildly insulting."

We got closer to the gates. The howling was so loud now it shook the ground at my feet, but I still couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

Then, about fifty feet in front of us, the green mist shimmered. Standing just where the path split into three lanes was an enormous shadowy monster.

I hadn't seen it before because it was half transparent, like the dead. Until it moved, it blended with whatever was behind it. Only its eyes and teeth looked solid. And it was staring straight at me.

I titled my head, "He's a Rottweiler."

I'd always imagined Cerberus as a big black mastiff. But he was obviously a purebred Rottweiler, except of course that he was twice the size of a woolly mammoth, mostly invisible, and had three heads. The dead walked right up to him—no fear at all. The ATTENDANT ON DUTY lines parted on either side of him. The EZ DEATH spirits walked right between his front paws and under his belly, which they could do without even crouching.

"I'm starting to see him better," I muttered. "Why is that?"

"I think ..." Justin moistened his lips. "I'm afraid it's because we're getting closer to being dead."

"Really?"

Justin nodded.

I smiled a wicked smile, "Excellent."

The dog's middle head craned toward us. It sniffed the air and growled.

"It can smell the living," I said.

"But that's okay," Grover said, trembling next to me. "Because we have a plan."

"Right," Justin said. I'd never heard his voice sound so small. "A plan."

We moved toward the monster. The middle head snarled at us, then barked so loud my eyeballs rattled.

"Can you understand it?" I asked Grover.

"Oh yeah," he said. "I can understand it."

"What's it saying?"

"I don't think humans have a four-letter word that translates, exactly."

"Do they have a greek word?" I asked as I felt my bag shift. I looked to see Justin took the big stick out of my backpack—a bedpost I'd broken off Crusty's Safari Deluxe floor model. He held it out to be and I took it from him, then I turned to Cerberus and held it up with the same wicked smile I had before.

"Hey, Buddy," I called up. "I bet they don't play with you much."

_"GROWWWLLLL!"_

"Good boy," I said with my smile widening. Call me crazy, but I thought he was so cute!

I waved the stick. The dog's middle head followed the movement. The other two heads trained their eyes on me, completely ignoring the spirits. I had Cerberus's undivided attention. I wasn't sure that was a good thing.

"Fetch!" I threw the stick into the gloom, a good solid throw. I heard it go _ker-sploosh_ in the River Styx.

Cerberus glared at me, unimpressed. His eyes were baleful and cold.

So much for the plan. Cerberus was now making a new kind of growl, deeper down in his three throats. All right time for new plan

"Um," Grover said. "Andrea?"

"Yeah?"

"I just thought you'd want to know."

"Yeah?"

"Cerberus? He's saying we've got ten seconds to pray to the god of our choice_._After that... well ... he's hungry."

"Does anyone have a red ball? or something like that?"Justin asked.

"Red ball?"

"Obedience school."

"No... why red?"

"Five seconds," Grover said. "Do we run now?"

I shook my head, thinking. How could I get pass the world's biggest guard dog. My aunt Rosie's picture flashed into my mind and I remembered something she told me when I was a little girl. She babysat me and would lull me to sleep with the same song my mom sang, _Music is the most amazing thing in the world._

I would sleepily ask, _Why?_

Then she would tuck me in and say, _Because it can put any thing to sleep._

She would bend down, lightly flick my nose, and exit my room humming the song. So, I started humming the beginning to My favorite spanish lullaby,

A la nanita nana, nanita ella, nanita ella  
Mi Nina tiene sueno bendito sea, bendito sea  
A la nanita nana, nanita ella, nanita ella  
Mi Nina tiene sueno bendito sea, bendito sea

Fuentecita que corre clara y sonora  
Ruisenor que en la selva cantando llora  
Calla mientras la cuna se balansea  
A la nanita nana, nanita ella

Cerberus looked as stunned as the boys were. All three of his heads cocked sideways. Six nostrils dilated.

A la nanita nana, nanita ella, nanita ella  
Mi Nina tiene sueno bendito sea, bendito sea

I started taking careful steps toward Cerberus, whose eyes were slowly closing, with my head held out.

Fuentecita que corre clara y sonora  
Ruisenor que en la selva cantando llora  
Calla mientras la cuna se balansea  
A la nanita nana, nanita ella

As soon as the song was my hand rested of Cerberus' middle head muzzle. Before his eyes could snap open, before he could continue growling at me, I moved my hand so that I was scratching him behind his ear. He reacted by licking his three sets of lips, shifting on his haunches, and sitting, immediately crushing a dozen spirits who'd been passing underneath him in the EZ DEATH line. The spirits made muffled hisses as they dissipated, like the air let out of tires.

I backed up as the other heads started fighting with the middle one to get attention and turned toward the boys. "Go now. EZ DEATH line—it's faster."

Justin said, "But—"

"Now.'" I ordered.

Grover and Justin inched forward warily. Cerberus started to growl. I tried to distract the monster but could no longer reach his ears. He ignored me, completely, and got up.

"Stay!" I ordered the dog.

Cerberus whimpered, but he stayed where he was.

"What about you?" Justin asked me as they passed me.

"I know what I'm doing, Justin," I muttered. "At least, I'm pretty sure..."

Grover and Justin walked between the monster's legs. I had half a mind to ask him to sit on them, just to see if they would dissipate like the spirits. But I decided not to, I needed a human shield when I meet my wonderful Uncle.

They made it through.

I said, "Good dog!"

I walked briskly under its belly with my hand up, scratching it as I went, and joined us at the metal detector.

"I didn't know you could sing." Justin said.

"I can't."

"Yes, you-"

"Never mind that," Grover said, tugging at Justin's shirt. "Come on!"

We were about to bolt through the EZ DEATH line when Cerberus moaned pitifully from all three mouths. I stopped. I turned to face the dog, which had done a one-eighty to look at us.

Cerberus panted expectantly.

"Good boy," I said, but my voice was melancholy and uncertain.

The monster's heads turned sideways, as if worried about me.

"I'll play later," I promised faintly. "Would you like that?"

The monster whimpered. I didn't need to speak dog to know Cerberus was still waiting to be played with.

"Good dog. I'll come visit you soon. I—I promise." I turned to Justin and Grover, my eyes watering. "Let's go."

Grover and Justin pushed through the metal detector, which immediately screamed and set off flashing red lights. "Unauthorized possessions! Magic detected!"

Cerberus started to bark.

We burst through the EZ DEATH gate, which started even more alarms blaring, and raced into the Underworld. A few minutes later, we were hiding, out of breath, in the rotten trunk of an immense black tree as security ghouls scuttled past, yelling for backup from the Furies.

Grover murmured, "Well, Andrea, what have we learned today?"

"What?"

"We've learned that your plans really, really bite!"

I wasn't sure about that. I thought maybe I had the right idea. Even here in the Underworld, everybody—even monsters—needed a little attention once in a while.

I thought about that as we waited for the ghouls to pass. I wiped a tear from my cheek as I listened to the mournful keening of Cerberus in the distance, longing for his new friend. I half-hoped that Cerberus would decide to fallow us, but he was stuck there. Doomed to guard the gates of hell for eternity. As another tear fell, he reminded me of what I feared the most, a cage.

* * *

**Did it suck, because I rushed? Also sorry for the wait things have been crazy, test, choir shows, theatre shows, and my brother has cancer... AGAIN! So, yeah. I hope the wait will be shorter for the next chapter.**


	20. Chapter 20

**Warning:Curse words and lethal white bunnies.**

**Well this was faster. Thanks for all the reviews. I hope this doesn't suck. **

* * *

Imagine the largest concert crowd you've ever seen, a foot ball field packed with a million fans.

Now imagine a field a million times that big, packed with people, and imagine the electricity has gone out, and there is no noise, no light, no beach ball bouncing around over the crowd. Something tragic has happened backstage. Whispering masses of people are just milling around in the shadows, waiting for a concert that will never start.

If you can picture that, you have a pretty good idea what the Fields of Asphodel looked like. The black grass had been trampled by eons of dead feet. A warm, moist wind blew like the breath of a swamp. Black trees—Grover told me they were poplars—grew in clumps here and there.

The cavern ceiling was so high above us it might've been a bank of storm clouds, except for the stalactites, which glowed faint gray and looked wickedly pointed. I tried not to imagine they'd fall on us at any moment, but dotted around the fields were several that had fallen and impaled themselves in the black grass. I guess the dead didn't have to worry about little hazards like being speared by stalactites the size of booster rockets.

Justin, Grover, and I tried to blend into the crowd, keeping an eye out for security ghouls. I couldn't help looking for familiar faces among the spirits of Asphodel, but the dead are hard to look at. Their faces shimmer. They all look slightly angry or confused. They will come up to you and speak, but their voices sound like chatter, like bats twittering. Once they realize you can't understand them, they frown and move away.

The dead aren't scary. They're just sad.

We crept along, following the line of new arrivals that snaked from the main gates toward a black-tented pavilion with a banner that read:

_JUDGMENTS FOR ELYSIUM AND ETERNAL DAMNATION_

_Welcome, Newly Deceased!_

Out the back of the tent came two much smaller lines.

To the left, spirits flanked by security ghouls were marched down a rocky path toward the Fields of Punishment, which glowed and smoked in the distance, a vast, cracked wasteland with rivers of lava and minefields and miles of barbed wire separating the different torture areas. Even from far away, I could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music.

I could just make out a tiny hill, with the ant-size figure of Sisyphus struggling to move his boulder to the top. And I saw worse tortures, too—things I don't want to describe.

The line coming from the right side of the judgment pavilion was much better. This one led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls—a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the Underworld. Beyond the security gate were neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history, Roman villas and medieval castles and Victorian mansions. Silver and gold flowers bloomed on the lawns. The grass rippled in rainbow colors. I could hear laughter and smell barbecue cooking.

Elysium.

In the middle of that valley was a glittering blue lake, with three small islands like a vacation resort in the Bahamas. The Isles of the Blest, for people who had chosen to be reborn three times, and three times achieved Elysium. Immediately I knew that's where I wanted to go when I died.

"That's what it's all about," Justin said, like he was reading my thoughts. "That's the place for heroes."

But I thought of how few people there were in Elysium, how tiny it was compared to the Fields of Asphodel or even the Fields of Punishment. So few people did good in their lives. It was depressing.

We left the judgment pavilion and moved deeper into the Asphodel Fields. It got darker. The colors faded from our clothes. The crowds of chattering spirits began to thin.

After a few miles of walking, we began to hear a familiar screech in the distance. Looming on the horizon was a palace of glittering black obsidian. Above the parapets swirled three dark bat like creatures: the Furies. I got the feeling they were waiting for us.

"I suppose it's too late to turn back," Grover said wistfully.

"We'll be okay." I said, but I couldn't shake the feeling that we weren't really sneaking through the Underworld, but walking into a trap.

"Maybe we should search some of the other places first," Grover suggested. "Like, Elysium, for instance …"

"Come on, goat boy." Justin grabbed his arm.

Grover yelped. His sneakers sprouted wings and his legs shot forward, pulling him away from Justin. He landed flat on his back in the grass.

"Grover?" I asked confused. Why did he do that?

"Grover," Justin chided. "Stop messing around."

"But I didn't—"

He yelped again. His shoes were flapping like crazy now. They levitated off the ground and started dragging him away from us.

_"Maia!" _he yelled, but the magic word seemed to have no effect._"Maia, _already! Nine-one-one! Help!"

I made a grab for Grover's hand, but too late. He was picking up speed, skidding downhill like a bobsled. We ran after him.

Justin shouted, "Untie the shoes!"

It was an idea, but it's not so easy when your shoes are pulling you along feet first at full speed. Grover tried to sit up, but he couldn't get close to the laces. We kept after him, trying to keep him in sight as he ripped between the legs of spirits who chattered at him in annoyance.

I was sure Grover was going to barrel straight through the gates of Hades's palace, but his shoes veered sharply to the right and dragged him in the opposite direction.

The slope got steeper. Grover picked up speed. Justin and I had to sprint to keep up. The cavern walls narrowed on either side, and I realized we'd entered some kind of side tunnel. No black grass or trees now, just rock underfoot, and the dim light of the stalactites above.

"Grover!" I yelled, my voice echoing. "Hold on to something!"

"What?" he yelled back.

He was grabbing at gravel, but there was nothing big enough to slow him down.

The tunnel got darker and colder. The hairs on my arms bristled. It smelled evil down here. It made me think of things I shouldn't even know about—blood spilled on an ancient stone altar, the foul breath of a murderer. Then I saw what was ahead of us, and I stopped dead in my tracks.

The tunnel widened into a huge dark cavern, and in the middle was a chasm the size of a city was sliding straight toward the edge.

I suddenly got a huge headache as soon as I realised what I was staring at. With that headache my dream came back to me, so did PP's Identity. As I remembered a cold feeling ran through out my body and sent a shiver down my spine.

"Come on, Andrea!" Justin yelled, tugging at my wrist.

"That's-"

"I know!" he shouted. "The place you described in your dream! But Grover's going to fall if we don't catch him." he was right, of course. Grover's predicament got me moving again.

He was yelling, clawing at the ground, but the winged shoes kept dragging him toward the pit, and it didn't look like we could possibly get to him in time.

What saved him were his hooves.

The flying sneakers had always been a loose fit on him, and finally Grover hit a big rock and the left shoe came flying off. It sped into the darkness, down into the chasm. The right shoe kept tugging him along, but not as fast. Grover was able to slow himself down by grabbing on to the big rock and using it like an anchor.

He was ten feet from the edge of the pit when we caught him and hauled him back up the slope. The other winged shoe tugged itself off, circled around us angrily and kicked our heads in protest before flying off into the chasm to join its twin.

We all collapsed, exhausted, on the obsidian gravel. My limbs felt like lead. Even my backpack seemed heavier, as if somebody had filled it with rocks. I looked curiously at the strap that hung on my left shoulder, _strange._

Grover was scratched up pretty bad. His hands were bleeding. His eyes had gone slit-pupiled, goat style, the way they did whenever he was terrified.

"I don't know how ..." he panted. "I didn't..."

"Sh," I said putting a finger to my lips and crouched down looking into the pit. "Listen."

I heard something—a deep whisper in the darkness. Another few seconds, and Justin said, "Andrea, this place—"

"Shh," I stood.

The sound was getting louder, a muttering, evil voice from far, far below us. Coming from the pit. Grover sat up. "Wh—what's that noise?"

Justin heard it too, now. I could see it in his eyes, along with fear. "Tartarus. The entrance to Tartarus."

I soon held Anaklusmos in my hands. The bronze sword expanded, gleaming in the darkness, and the evil voice seemed to falter, just for a moment, before resuming its chant. I could almost make out words now, ancient, ancient words, older even than Greek. As if ...

"Magic," I said.

"We have to get out of here," Justin said.

Together, we dragged Grover to his hooves and started back up the tunnel. My legs wouldn't move fast enough. My backpack weighed me down. _What is in this thing?_

The voice got louder and angrier behind us, and we broke into a run. Not a moment too soon.

A cold blast of wind pulled at our backs, as if the entire pit was inhaling. For a moment, I lost ground, my feet slipping in the gravel. If we'd been any closer to the edge, we would've been sucked in.

We kept struggling forward, and finally reached the top of the tunnel, where the cavern widened out into the Fields of Asphodel. The wind died. A wail of outrage echoed from deep in the tunnel. Something was not happy we'd gotten away. Most likely PP.

"What _was _that?" Grover panted, when we'd collapsed in the relative safety of a black poplar grove. "One of Hades's pets?"

Justin and I looked at each other. I could tell he was nursing an idea, probably the same one he'd gotten during the taxi ride to L.A., but he was too sacred to share it. I capped my sword, put the pen back in my pocket. "No. Something... much worse. Let's keep going." I looked at Grover. "Can you walk?"

He swallowed. "Yeah, sure. I never liked those shoes, anyway."

He tried to sound brave about it, but he was trembling as badly as Justin and I were. Whatever was in that pit was nobody's pet. It was unspeakably old and powerful. I was almost relieved to turn my back on that tunnel and head toward the palace of Hades.

Almost.

The Furies circled the parapets, high in the gloom. The outer walls of the fortress glittered black, and the two-story-tall bronze gates stood wide open.

Up close, I saw that the engravings on the gates were scenes of death. Some were from modern times—an atomic bomb exploding over a city, a trench filled with gas mask-wearing soldiers, a line of African famine victims waiting with empty bowls—but all of them looked as if they'd been etched into the bronze thousands of years ago. I wondered if I was looking at prophecies that had come true.

Inside the courtyard was the strangest garden I'd ever seen. Multicolored mushrooms, poisonous shrubs, and weird luminous plants grew without sunlight. Precious jewels made up for the lack of flowers, piles of rubies as big as my fist, clumps of raw diamonds. Standing here and there like frozen party guests were Medusa's garden statues— petrified children, satyrs, and centaurs—all smiling grotesquely. I wasn't sure if I should be amazed by the usual plants and many gems, or a mix between creeped out and saddened for the statues that didn't used to be statues.

In the center of the garden was an orchard of pomegranate trees, their orange blooms neon bright in the dark. "The garden of Persephone," Justin said. "Keep walking."

I understood why he wanted to move on. The tart smell of those pomegranates was almost overwhelming. I had a sudden desire to eat them, but then I knew that with one bite of Underworld food, and we would never be able to leave. I dragged Grover away to keep him from picking a big juicy one.

We walked up the steps of the palace, between black columns, through a black marble portico, and into the house of Hades. The entry hall had a polished bronze floor, which seemed to boil in the reflected torchlight. There was no ceiling, just the cavern roof, far above. I guess they never had to worry about rain down here.

Every side doorway was guarded by a skeleton in military gear. Some wore Greek armor, some British redcoat uniforms, some camouflage with tattered American flags on the shoulders. They carried spears or muskets or M-16s. None of them bothered us, but their hollow eye sockets followed us as we walked down the hall, toward the big set of doors at the opposite end. It wasn't terrifying to see them, but... cool.

Two U.S. Marine skeletons guarded the doors. They grinned down at us, rocket-propelled grenade launchers held across their chests. Looks as if my new favorite uncle was expecting us.

"You know," Grover mumbled, "I bet Hades doesn't have trouble with door-to-door salesmen."

I sent Grover an amused smirk, "what kind door-to-door salesmen would know how to come here?"

My backpack weighed a ton now. I couldn't figure out why. I wanted to open it, check to see if I had somehow picked up a stray bowling ball, but this wasn't the time.

"Do we knock?" I asked.

A hot wind blew down the corridor, and the doors swung open. The guards stepped aside.

"I guess that means _entrez-vous," _Justin said.

"You know French?"

"Not the Point."

The room inside looked just like in my dream, except this time the throne of Hades was occupied. He was the third god I'd met, but the first who really struck me as godlike.

He was at least ten feet tall, for one thing, and dressed in black silk robes and a crown of braided gold. His skin was albino white, his hair shoulder-length and jet black. He wasn't bulked up like Ares, but he radiated power. He lounged on his throne of fused human bones, looking lithe, graceful, and dangerous as a panther.

I immediately felt like he should be giving the orders. He knew more than I did. He should be my master.

I raised an eyebrow at the thoughts I just had, the thoughts that could never be my _own. _Hades's aura was affecting me, just as Ares's had. The Lord of the Dead resembled pictures I'd seen of Adolph Hitler, or Napoleon, or the terrorist leaders who direct suicide bombers. Hades had the same intense eyes, the same kind of mesmerizing, evil charisma.

"You are brave to come here, Daughter of Poseidon," he said in an oily voice. "After what you have done to me, very brave indeed. Or perhaps you are simply very foolish."

I covered my nervousness with sly smirk, "You would be amazed how much Foolishness and bravery cross or mix."

Numbness crept into my joints, tempting me to lie down and just take a little nap at Hades's feet. Curl up here and sleep forever.

_I wonder why different gods Aura make you feel different things? _I mused to myself.

I shook my head, fighting the feeling Hades' aura made me feel and to get me back on track. I stepped forward with a serious face, "Lord and Uncle, I come with one request."

Hades raised an eyebrow. When he sat forward in his throne, shadowy faces appeared in the folds of his black robes, faces of torment, as if the garment were stitched of trapped souls from the Fields of Punishment, trying to get out. The ADHD part of me wondered, off-task, whether the rest of his clothes were made the same way. What horrible things would you have to do in your life to get woven into Hades's underwear?

"Only one request?" Hades said. "Arrogant child. As if you have not already taken enough. Speak, then. It amuses me not to strike you dead yet."

I swallowed and... smiled. For some reason, I wasn't scared of my Uncle. I was either going insane or was getting used to being threatened by an Uncle. I decided the answer was both as I dropped in a mocking bow and said, "glad to be at service."

I glanced at the empty, smaller throne next to Hades's. It was shaped like a black flower, gilded with gold. Queen Persephone's throne. It was summer. Of course, Persephone would be above in the world of light with her mother, the goddess of agriculture, Demeter. Her visits, not the tilt of the planet, create the seasons. Shame, she could calm her husband's moods.

Justin cleared his throat. His finger prodded me in the back.

"Uncle Hades," I said. "First I need to ask a question, do you have the master bolt?"

The boys looked at me as if I was stupid.

Hades's eyes grew dangerously bright. "You dare think I have my brothers weapon? You dare keep up this pretense, after what you have done?"

I should've been terrified, I wasn't, I felt offended. Nothing gets me angrier than being accused of something I didn't do. I've had a lot of experience with that.I was a little bit confused, a little bit angry that people think that I stole the Master Bold, offended, and as a result I sassed him. In spanish.

"You sent the Minotaur, who took my mother from me and I intend to get her back. You sent the Furies, twice, all while ruining my education in algebra because Alecto can't teach Crap. On my way here I met MANY, MANY Monsters that planned to have me on their menu, met the dumbest god alive (named Ares), almost died let's see one, two, three...ten times in the last couple of _weeks_. And I did not come all this way for my PMSing Uncle to not answer my question and yell at me for a crime I didn't commit. Or accuse me for an other one."

Judging by the shocked look on his face I concluded two things. One, he knew spanish. Two, I'm the first person to speak to him like that, in fact I think I may be the only non-god to ever yell or talk back.

Once Uncle H got over his shock the throne room shook with a tremor so strong, they probably felt it upstairs in Los Angeles. Debris fell from the cavern ceiling. Doors burst open all along the walls, and skeletal warriors marched in, hundreds of them, from every time period and nation in Western civilization. They lined the perimeter of the room, blocking the exits.

Hades bellowed, "Do you think I _want _war, godling?"

"Well, these guys don't look like peace activists."

His eye twitched.

"I never said you did, but you are the Lord of the Dead," I backtracked. "A war would expand your kingdom."

"A typical thing for my brothers to say! Do you think I need more subjects? Did you not see the sprawl of the Asphodel Fields?"

"Yes."

"Have you any idea how much my kingdom has swollen in this past century alone, how many subdivisions I've had to open?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but Hades was on a roll now.

"More security ghouls," he moaned. "Traffic problems at the judgment pavilion. Double overtime for the staff. I used to be a rich god, Andrea Jackson. I control all the precious metals under the earth. But my expenses!"

"Charon also wants a pay raise," I blurted, just remembering the fact.

"Don't get me started on Charon!" Hades yelled. "He's been impossible ever since he discovered Italian suits! Problems everywhere, and I've got to handle all of them personally. The commute time alone from the palace to the gates is enough to drive me insane! And the dead just keep arriving. _No,_godling. I need no help getting subjects! I did not ask for this war."

"SO you don't have the bolt."

More rumbling. Hades rose from his throne, towering to the height of a football goalpost. "Your father may fool Zeus, boy, but I am not so stupid. I see his plan."

I crossed my arms and sent him a look that said alright I'll humor you,"His plan?"

_"You _were the thief on the winter solstice," he said. "Your father thought to keep you his little secret. He directed you into the throne room on Olympus, You took the master bolt _and _my helmet. Had I not sent my Fury to discover you at Yancy Academy, Poseidon might have succeeded in hiding his scheme to start a war. But now you have been forced into the open. You will be exposed as Poseidon's thief, and I will have my helmet back!"

"But ..." Justin spoke. I could tell his mind was going a million miles an hour. "Lord Hades, your helmet of darkness is missing, too?"

"Do not play innocent with me, boy. You and the satyr have been helping this hero—coming here to threaten me in Poseidon's name, no doubt—to bring me an ultimatum. Does Poseidon think I can be blackmailed into supporting him?"

"Question," I said rasing my hand. "Are all gods delusional?"

"I have said nothing of the helmet's disappearance," Hades snarled ignoring me, "because I had no illusions that anyone on Olympus would offer me the slightest justice, the slightest help. I can ill afford for word to get out that my most powerful weapon of fear is missing. So I searched for you myself, and when it was clear you were coming to me to deliver your threat, I did not try to stop you."

"You didn't, how nice."

"Return my helmet now, or I will stop death," Hades threatened. "That is my counter proposal. I will open the earth and have the dead pour back into the world. I will make your lands a nightmare. And you, Andrea Jackson—_your _skeleton will lead my army out of Hades."

The skeletal soldiers all took one step forward, making their weapons ready.

"You're as bad as Zeus," I said. "You think I stole from you? That's why you sent the Furies after me?"

"Of course," Hades said.

"And the other monsters?"

Hades curled his lip. "I had nothing to do with them. I wanted no quick death for you—I wanted you brought before me alive so you might face every torture in the Fields of Punishment. Why do you think I let you enter my kingdom so easily?"

_"Easily?"_

"Return my property!"

"But I don't have your helmet. I came for the master bolt."

"Which you already possess!" Hades shouted. "You came here with it, little fool, thinking you could you threaten me!"

"ALL YOU'VE DONE WAS THREATEN ME, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND! Also, I don't have the **STUPID! STINKING! MASTER! BOLT!**

"Open your pack, then."

A horrible feeling struck me. The weight in my backpack, like a bowling ball. It couldn't be... I slung it off my shoulder and unzipped it_. _Inside was a two-foot-long metal cylinder, spiked on both ends, humming with energy.

"Andrea," Justin said. "How—"

"I... don't know."

"You heroes are always the same," Hades said. "Your pride makes you foolish, thinking you could bring such a weapon before me. I did not ask for Zeus's master bolt, but since it is here, you will yield it to me. I am sure it will make an excellent bargaining tool. And now ... my helmet. Where is it?"

Suddenly the world turned sideways. I realized I'd been played with. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades had been set at each other's throats by someone else. The master bolt had been in the backpack, and I'd gotten the backpack from ... Ares. The puzzle was almost solved, but it was missing a piece or two. What would Kronos do with the weapons if he had gotten them? Why frame me? Who was Kronos' servant?

Which friend would betray me?

"This is all a mistake." I whispered.

"A mistake?" Hades roared.

The skeletons aimed their weapons. From high above, there was a fluttering of leathery wings, and the three Furies swooped down to perch on the back of their master's throne. The one with Mrs. Dodds's face grinned at me eagerly and flicked her whip.

"There is no mistake," Hades said. "I know why you have come—I know the _real _reason you brought the bolt. You came to bargain for _her_."

Hades loosed a ball of gold fire from his palm. It exploded on the steps in front of me, and there was my mother, frozen in a shower of gold, just as she was at the moment when the Minotaur began to squeeze her to death.

I couldn't speak. I reached out to touch her, but the light was as hot as a bonfire.

"I knew," Hades said with satisfaction. "Andrea Jackson, that you would come to bargain with me eventually. Return my helmet, and perhaps I will let her go. She is not dead, you know. Not yet. But if you displease me, that will change."

I thought about the pearls in my pocket. Maybe they could get me out of this. If I could just get my mom free...

"Ah, the pearls," Hades said, and I froze.

"Yes, my brother and his little tricks. Bring them forth, Andrea Jackson."

My hand moved against my will and brought out the pearls.

"Only three," Hades said. "What a shame. You do realize each only protects a single person. Try to take your mother, then, little godling. And which of your friends will you leave behind to spend eternity with me? Go on. Choose. Or give me the backpack and accept my terms."

I looked at Justin and Grover. Their faces were grim.

"We were tricked," I told them. "Set up."

"Yes, but why?" Justin asked. "And the voice in the pit—"

"I don't know yet," I said. "But I will."

"Decide, girl!" Hades yelled.

"Andrea." Grover put his hand on my shoulder. "You can't give him the bolt,"

"I know that."

"Leave me here," he said. "Use the third pearl on your mom."

"No!"

"I'm a satyr," Grover said. "We don't have souls like humans do. He can torture me until I die, but he won't get me forever. I'll just be reincarnated as a flower or something. It's the best way."

"No." Justin drew his bronze knife. "You two go on. Grover, you have to protect Andrea. You have to get your searcher's license and start your quest for Pan. Get his mom out of here. I'll cover you. I plan to go down fighting."

"No way," Grover said. "I'm staying behind."

"Think again, goat boy," Justin said.

"Stop it, both of you!" I felt like my heart was being ripped in two. They had both been with me through so much. I remembered Grover dive-bombing Medusa in the statue garden, and Justin and I surviving Hephaestus's Waterland ride; we'd survived the St. Louis Arch, the Lotus Casino, the water beds of doom. I had spent thousands of miles worried that I'd be betrayed by a friend, but these friends would never do that.

They had done nothing but save me, over and over, and now they wanted to sacrifice their lives for my mom.

"I know what to do," I said. "Take these."

I handed them each a pearl.

Justin said, "But, Andrea ..."

I turned and faced my mother. I desperately wanted to sacrifice myself and use the last pearl on her, but I knew what she would say. She would never allow it. I had to get the bolt back to Olympus and tell Zeus the truth. I had to stop the war. She would never forgive me if I saved her instead. I thought about the prophecy made at Half-Blood Hill, what seemed like a million years ago._You will fail to save what matters most in the end._

I tear ran down the side of my cheek, "Bye-bye, Mommy."

The smug look on Hades's face faded. He said, "Godling ... ?"

"I'll find your helmet, Uncle," I told him brushing the tear away. "I'll return it. Remember about Charon's pay raise."

"Do not defy me—"

"And it wouldn't hurt to play with Cerberus once in a while. He likes to be scratched behind his ears."

"Andrea Jackson, you will not—"

I shouted, "Now!"

We smashed the pearls at our feet. For a scary moment, nothing happened.

Hades yelled, "Destroy them!"

The army of skeletons rushed forward, swords out, guns clicking to full automatic. The Furies lunged, their whips bursting into flame.

Just as the skeletons opened fire, the pearl fragments at my feet exploded with a burst of green light and a gust of fresh sea wind. I was encased in a milky white sphere, which was starting to float off the ground.

Justin and Grover were right behind me. Spears and bullets sparked harmlessly off the pearl bubbles as we floated up. Hades yelled with such rage, the entire fortress shook and I knew it was not going to be a peaceful night in L.A.

"Look up.'" Grover yelled. "We're going to crash!"

Sure enough, we were racing right toward the stalactites, which I figured would pop our bubbles and skewer us.

"How do you control these things?" Justin shouted.

"I don't think you do!" I shouted back.

We screamed as the bubbles slammed into the ceiling and ... Darkness.

I could feel a racing sensation. We were going up, right through solid rock as easily as an air bubble in water. That was the power of the pearls, I realized—_What belongs to the sea will always return to the sea._

For a few moments, I couldn't see anything outside the smooth walls of my sphere, then my pearl broke through on the ocean floor. The two other milky spheres, Justin and Grover, kept pace with me as we soared upward through the water. And—_ker-blam!_

We exploded on the surface, in the middle of the Santa Monica Bay, knocking a surfer off his board with an indignant, "Dude!"

I grabbed Grover and hauled him over to a life buoy. I caught Justin and dragged him over too. A curious shark was circling us, a great white about eleven feet long.

I said, "Beat it."

The shark turned and raced away.

The surfer screamed something about bad mushrooms and paddled away from us as fast as he could.

Somehow, I knew what time it was: early morning, June 21, the day of the summer solstice.

In the distance, Los Angeles was on fire, plumes of smoke rising from neighborhoods all over the city. There had been an earthquake, all right, and it was Hades's fault. He was probably sending an army of the dead after me right now.

But at the moment, the Underworld wasn't my biggest problem.

I had to get to shore. I had to get Zeus's thunderbolt back to Olympus. Most of all, I had to have a serious conversation with the god who'd tricked me.

* * *

**I have finals next week so the next chapter will be a little late or really early.**


	21. Chapter 21

**Hey guys! Sorry for taking so long! I hope I didn't lose more readers.**

**Thanks for the reviews (I got past 100 whoop-whoop) and ENJOY!**

* * *

A Coast Guard boat picked us up, but they were too busy to keep us for long, or to wonder how three kids in street clothes had gotten out into the middle of the bay.

There was a disaster to mop up. Their radios were jammed with distress calls.

They dropped us off at the Santa Monica Pier with towels around our shoulders and water bottles that said I'M A JUNIOR COAST GUARD! and sped off to save more people.

Our clothes were sopping wet, even mine. When the Coast Guard boat had appeared, I'd silently prayed they wouldn't pick me out of the water and find me perfectly dry, which might've raised some eyebrows. So I'd willed myself to get soaked. Sure enough, my usual waterproof magic had abandoned me. I was also barefoot, because I'd given my shoes to Grover.

Better the Coast Guard wonder why one of us was barefoot than wonder why one of us had hooves.

After reaching dry land, we stumbled down the beach, watching the city burn against a beautiful sunrise. I felt as if I'd just come back from the dead —which I had. My back pack was heavy with Zeus's master bolt. My heart was even heavier from seeing my mother.

"I don't believe it," Justin said. "We went all that way—"

"It was a trick," I said, then turned to them. "You get it, don't you?"

He dropped her eyes, his anger fading. "Yeah. I get it."

"Well, I don't!" Grover complained. "Would somebody—"

"Andrea ..." Justin said. "I'm sorry about your mother. I'm so sorry..."

I pretended not to hear him. If I talked about my mother, I was going to start crying.

"The prophecy was right," I said looking at Grover. "You shall go west and face the god who has turned.' But it wasn't Hades. Hades didn't want war among the Big Three. Someone else pulled off the theft. Someone stole Zeus's master bolt, and Hades' helm, and framed me because I'm Poseidon's daughter. Poseidon will get blamed by both sides. By sundown today, there will be a three-way war. And I caused it."

Grover shook his head, mystified. "But who would be that sneaky? Who would want war that bad?"

"I have an idea who would be that sneaky and a different idea for who would want war that bad."

"Two people?" Grover looked startled by the thought.

"No, One person. The sneaky one is the mastermind. The other is a pawn."

Justin watched me with a calculating look and Grover nodded at the logic of what I was saying, "Then whose the mastermind?"

I sighed and closed my eyes, "I told you it was just an idea. And I hope I'm wrong."

"Who do you think is the pawn?"

I stopped in my tracks, looking down the beach. "Gee, let me think."

There he was, waiting for us, in his black leather duster and his sunglasses, an aluminum baseball bat propped on his shoulder. His motorcycle rumbled beside him, its head light turning the sand red.

"Hey, kid," Ares said, seeming genuinely pleased to see me. "You were supposed to die."

"You tricked me," I said._"You _had the helm and the master bolt, the whole time. You stole them-" -_from the real thief, _I added silently.

Ares grinned. "Well, now, I didn't steal them personally. Gods taking each other's symbols of power—that's a big no-no. But you're not the only hero in the world who can run errands."

I mentally scoffed, _'Heroes' sometimes don't just run errands for gods._

"Who stole the helm and master bolt?"

"Doesn't matter. The point is, kid, you're impeding the war effort. See, you've got to die in the Underworld. Then Old Seaweed will be mad at Hades for killing you. Corpse Breath will have Zeus's master bolt, so Zeus'll be mad at _him. _And Hades is still looking for this …"

From his pocket he took out a ski cap—the kind bank robbers wear—and placed it between the handlebars of his bike. Immediately, the cap transformed into an elaborate bronze war helmet. _The helm._

"The helm of darkness," Grover gasped.

"Exactly," Ares said. "Now where was I? Oh yeah, Hades will be mad at both Zeus and Poseidon, because he doesn't know who took this. Pretty soon, we got a nice little three-way slugfest going."

"But they're your family!" Justin protested.

Ares shrugged. "Best kind of war. Always the bloodiest. Nothing like watching your relatives fight, I always say."

"You gave me the backpack in Denver," I said. "The master bolt was in there the whole time."

"Yes and no," Ares said. "It's probably too complicated for your little mortal brain to follow, but the backpack is the master bolt's sheath, just morphed a bit. The bolt is connected to it, sort of like that sword you got, kid. It always returns to your pocket, right?"

I wasn't sure how Ares knew about that, but I guess a god of war had to make it his business to know about weapons.

"Anyway," Ares continued, "I tinkered with the magic a bit, so the bolt would only return to the sheath once you reached the Underworld. You get close to Hades... Bingo, you got mail. If you died along the way—no loss. I still had the weapon."

"But why not just keep the master bolt for yourself?" I said. "Why send it to Hades?"

Ares got a twitch in his jaw. For a moment, it was almost as if he were listening to another voice, deep inside his head. "Why didn't I ... yeah ... with that kind of fire power ..."

He held the trance for one second ... two seconds...

I exchanged nervous looks with Justin. Ares's face cleared. "I didn't want the trouble. Better to have you caught red-handed, holding the thing."

"You're lying," I said. "Sending the bolt to the Underworld wasn't your idea, was it?"

"Of course it was!" Smoke drifted up from his sun glasses, as if they were about to catch fire.

"You didn't order the theft," I guessed. "Someone else sent a 'hero' to steal the two items. Then, when Zeus sent you to hunt him down, you caught the thief. But you didn't turn him over to Zeus. Something convinced you to let him go. You kept the items until another hero could come along and complete the delivery. That thing in the pit is ordering you around."

"I am the god of war! I take orders from no one! I don't have dreams!"

I smirked. "Who said anything about dreams?"

Ares looked agitated, but he tried to cover it with a smirk.

"Let's get back to the problem at hand, kid. You're alive. I can't have you taking that bolt to Olympus. You just might get those hard-headed idiots to listen to you. So I've got to kill you. Nothing personal."

He snapped his fingers. The sand exploded at his feet and out charged a wild boar, even larger and uglier than the one whose head hung above the door of cabin seven at Camp Half-Blood. The beast pawed the sand, glaring at me with beady eyes as it lowered its razor-sharp tusks and waited for the command to kill.

I stepped into the surf. "Fight me yourself, Ares. I will humiliate you when you fail. Nothing personal."

He laughed, but I heard a little edge to his laughter ... an uneasiness.

"You've only got one talent, kid, running away. You ran from the Chimera. You ran from the Underworld. You don't have what it takes."

I laughed mockingly, "Or could it be the fact that the 'great' God of war is scared of the demigod daughter of the sea king?"

"In your adolescent dreams." But his sunglasses were starting to melt from the heat of his eyes. "No direct involvement. Sorry, kid. You're not at my level."

I laughed again, "_Your _not at _my_ level."

Justin yelled over my laughter, "Andrea, run!"

I went quiet and my face turned emotionless.

The giant boar charged. But I was done running from monsters. Or Hades, or Ares, or anybody.

As the boar rushed me, I gripped my bracelet and side-stepped. Riptide appeared in my hands. I slashed upward. The boar's severed right tusk fell at my feet, while the disoriented animal charged into the sea.

I whispered in a monotone voice, "Wave."

Immediately, a wave surged up from nowhere and engulfed the boar, wrapping around it like a blanket. The beast squealed once in terror. Then it was gone, swallowed by the sea.

I turned back to Ares. "Are you going to fight me now?" I asked still maintaining a mocking tone in a monotone voice. "Or are you going to hide behind another pet? Like the Coward you are."

Ares's face was purple with rage. "Watch it, kid. I could turn you into—"

"A cockroach," I said. "Or a tapeworm. I'm sure. That'd save you from getting your godly hide whipped, wouldn't it?"

Flames danced along the top of his glasses. "Oh, man, you are really asking to be smashed into a grease spot."

"If I lose, turn me into anything you want. Take the bolt. If I win, the helm and the bolt are mine and _you _have to go away."

Ares sneered.

He swung the baseball bat off his shoulder. "How would you like to get smashed: classic or modern?"

I showed him my sword.

"That's cool, dead girl," he said. "Classic it is." The baseball bat changed into a huge, two-handed sword. The hilt was a large silver skull with a ruby in its mouth.

"Andrea," Justin said. "Don't do this. He's a god."

"He's not a god. He's a coward," I told him.

He swallowed. "Wear this, at least. For luck."

He took off his necklace, with his five years' worth of camp beads and the ring from his father, and tied it around my neck.

"Reconciliation," he said. "Athena and Poseidon together."

I smiled brightly at him. "Thanks."

"And take this," Grover said. He handed me a flattened tin can that he'd probably been saving in his pocket for a thousand miles. "The satyrs stand behind you."

"Grover ... you were my first friend and no matter how rude I was to you, you still... thanks."

He patted me on the shoulder. I stuffed the tin can in my back pocket.

"You all done saying good-bye?" Ares came toward me, his black leather duster trailing behind him, his sword glinting like fire in the sunrise. "I've been fighting for eternity, kid. My strength is unlimited and I cannot die. What have you got?"

"A smaller ego."

I kept my feet in the surf, backing into the water up to my ankles. I thought back to what Justin had said at the Denver diner, so long ago:_Ares has strength. That's all he has. Even strength has to bow down to wisdom sometimes._

He cleaved downward at my head, but I wasn't there.

My body thought for me. The water seemed to push me into the air and I catapulted over him, slashing as I came down. But Ares was just as quick. He twisted, and the strike that should've caught him directly in the spine was deflected off the end of his sword hilt.

He grinned. "Not bad, not bad."

He slashed again and I was forced to jump onto dry land.

I tried to sidestep, to get back to the water, but Ares seemed to know what I wanted.

He out maneuvered me, pressing so hard I had to put all my concentration on not getting sliced into pieces. I kept backing away from the surf. I couldn't find any openings to attack. His sword had a reach several feet longer than Anaklusmos.

_When you've got the shorter blade, get in close._

I stepped inside with a thrust, but Ares was waiting for that. He knocked my blade out of my hands and kicked me in the chest. I went airborne—twenty, maybe thirty feet. I would've broken my back if I hadn't crashed into the soft sand of a dune.

"Andrea!" Justin yelled. "Cops!"

I was seeing double. My chest felt like it had just been hit with a battering ram, but I managed to get to my feet, muttering spanish curse words. I couldn't look away from Ares and give him the chance to slice me in half, but out of the corner of my eye I saw red lights flashing on the shoreline boulevard. Car doors were slamming.

"There, officer!" somebody yelled. "See?"

A gruff cop voice: "Looks like that kid on TV ... what the heck ..."

"That guy's armed," another cop said. "Call for backup."

I rolled to one side as Ares's blade slashed the sand. I ran for my sword, scooped it up, and launched a swipe at Ares's face, only to find my blade deflected again. Ares seemed to know exactly what I was going to do the moment before I did it. I stepped back toward the surf, forcing him to follow.

"Admit it, kid," Ares said. "You got no hope. I'm just toying with you."

I just smirked and took out my dagger, Nereus, just in case I lost Riptide again.

My senses were working overtime. I now understood what Justin had said about ADHD keeping you alive in battle. I was wide awake, noticing every little detail.

I could see where Ares was tensing. I could tell which way he would strike. At the same time, I was aware of Justin and Grover, thirty feet to my left. I saw a second cop car pulling up, siren wailing. Spectators, people who had been wandering the streets because of the earthquake, were starting to gather. Among the crowd, I thought I saw a few who were walking with the strange, trotting gait of disguised satyrs. There were shimmering forms of spirits, too, as if the dead had risen from Hades to watch the battle. I heard the flap of leathery wings circling somewhere above.

More sirens.

I stepped farther into the water, but Ares was fast. The tip of his blade ripped my sleeve and grazed my forearm.

A police voice on a megaphone said, "Drop the guns. Set them on the ground. Now!"

I looked at Ares's weapon, and it seemed to be flickering; sometimes it looked like a shotgun, sometimes a two-handed sword. I didn't know what the humans were seeing in my hands, but I was pretty sure it wouldn't make them root for me.

Ares turned to glare at our spectators, which gave me a moment to plan further. There were five police cars now, and a line of officers crouching behind them, pistols trained on us.

"This is a private matter!" Ares bellowed. "Be gone."

He swept his hand, and a wall of red flame rolled across the patrol cars. The police barely had time to dive for cover before their vehicles exploded. The crowd behind them scattered, screaming. That made me glare at him.

Ares roared with laughter. "Now, little hero. Let's add you to the barbecue."

He slashed. I deflected his blade. I got close enough to strike, tried to fake him out with a feint, but my blow was knocked aside. The waves were hitting me in the back now. Ares was up to his thighs, wading in after me.

I felt the rhythm of the sea, the waves growing larger as the tide rolled in, and my glare turned into a smug smile. _Little waves, _I thought. And the water behind me seemed to recede. I was holding back the tide by force of will, but tension was building, like carbonation behind a cork. Everything was going according to plan.

Ares came toward, grinning confidently. I lowered my blade, as if I were too exhausted to go on. _Wait for it, _I told the sea. The pressure now was almost lifting me off my feet. Ares raised his sword. I released the tide and jumped, rocketing straight over Ares on a wave. A six-foot wall of water smashed him full in the face, leaving him cursing and sputtering with a mouth full of seaweed.

I let out a mocking laugh as I landed behind him with a splash and feinted toward his head, as I'd done before. He turned in time to raise his sword, but this time he was disoriented, he didn't anticipate the trick. I changed direction, lunged to the side, and stabbed Riptide straight down into the water, sending the point through the god's heel.

The roar that followed made Hades's earthquake look like a minor event. The very sea was blasted back from Ares, leaving a wet circle of sand fifty feet wide.

Ichor, the golden blood of the gods, flowed from a gash in the war god's boot. The expression on his face was beyond hatred. It was pain, shock, complete disbelief that he'd been wounded.

"Aww, does the big bad god have a boo-boo," I taunted.

He limped toward me, muttering ancient Greek curses.

Something stopped him.

It was as if a cloud covered the sun, but worse. Light faded. Sound and color drained away. A cold, heavy presence passed over the beach, slowing _time_, dropping the temperature to freezing, and making me feel like life was hopeless, fighting was useless.

The darkness lifted.

Ares looked stunned.

Police cars were burning behind us. The crowd of spectators had fled. Justin and Grover stood on the beach, in shock, watching the water flood back around Ares's feet, his glowing golden ichor dissipating in the tide.

Ares lowered his sword.

"You have made an enemy, godling," he told me. "You have sealed your fate. Every time you raise your blade in battle, every time you hope for success, you will feel my curse. Beware, Alejandrina Jackson. Beware."

"I'm so scared."

His body began to glow.

"Andrea!" Justin shouted. "Don't watch!"

I turned away as the god Ares revealed his true immortal form. I knew that if I looked, I would disintegrate into ashes. The light died.

I looked back. Ares was gone. The tide rolled out to reveal Hades's bronze helm of darkness. I picked it up and walked toward my friends.

But before I got there, I heard the flapping of leathery wings. Three evil-looking grandmothers with lace hats and fiery whips drifted down from the sky and landed in front of me.

The middle Fury, the one who had been Mrs. Dodds (Alecto), stepped forward. Her fangs were bared, but for once she didn't look threatening. She looked more disappointed, as if she'd been planning to have me for supper, but had decided I might give her indigestion.

"We saw the whole thing," she hissed. "So ... it truly was not you?"

I tossed her the helmet, which she caught in surprise.

"Return that to Lord Hades," I said. "Tell him the truth. Tell him to call off the war."

She hesitated, then ran a forked tongue over her green, leathery lips. "Live well, Andrea Jackson. Become a true hero. Because if you do not, if you ever come into my clutches again …"

She cackled, savoring the idea. Then she and her sisters rose on their bats' wings, fluttered into the smoke-filled sky, and disappeared.

I joined Grover and Justin, who were staring at me in amazement.

"Andrea ..." Grover said. "That was so incredibly ..."

"Terrifying," said Justin.

"Cool!" Grover corrected.

I didn't feel terrified. I certainly didn't feel cool. I was tired and sore and completely drained of energy.

"Did you guys feel that...?" I asked.

They both nodded uneasily.

"Must've been the Furies overhead," Grover said.

I shock my head. Something had stopped Ares from killing me, and whatever could do that was a lot stronger than the Furies. And had a reason.

I looked at Justin, and an understanding passed between us. We knew what was in that pit, what had spoken from the entrance of Tartarus. I reclaimed my backpack from Grover and looked inside. The master bolt was still there. Such a small thing to almost cause World War III.

"We have to get back to New York," I said. "By tonight."

"That's impossible," Justin said, "unless we—"

"Fly," I agreed.."

He stared at me. "Fly, like, in an airplane, which you were warned never to do lest Zeus strike you out of the sky, _and _carrying a weapon that has more destructive power than a nuclear bomb?"

"Yes," I said. "It should be fun."

* * *

**Sorry it took so long my mind went blank when typing up the fighting sence. By the way _Guest_ I have thought of your idea and I am thinking of making a series of One-shot involving Andrea including your idea and the gods reaction to the cupid cam. And if reader want to read more about one thing or has an idea, then they could review or PM me and I'll write it and post it.**

**AGAIN, SORRY FOR THE WAIT!**


	22. Chapter 22

**Credit for Andrea's nickname for Poseidon goes to _life is short so am i_, thanks for the idea by the way. YOUR AWESOME!**

**Any way thanks for the reviews (I had a lot of new people review *happy dance*) and I hope you enjoy the second-to-last chapter of Andrea Jackson and the lightning thief. But don't be sad, I plan to do the whole series and I WILL NOT ABANDON IT!**

**ENJOY!**

* * *

_'It's funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality.'_ Chiron had told me that long ago. But, I didn't appreciate his wisdom until much later.

According to the L.A. news, the explosion at the Santa Monica beach had been caused when a crazy kidnapper fired a shotgun at a police car. He accidentally hit a gas main that had ruptured during the earthquake. This crazy kidnapper (a.k.a. Ares, who is described perfectly by mortals/mist) was the same man who had abducted me and two other adolescents (a.k.a Donkey and the Almighty Wise One) in New York and brought us across country on a ten-day odyssey of terror.

Poor little Andrea Jackson wasn't an international criminal after all.

She'd caused a commotion on that Greyhound bus in New Jersey trying to get away from her captor (and afterward, witnesses would even swear they had seen the leather-clad man on the bus—"Why didn't I remember him before?"). The crazy man had caused the explosion in the St. Louis Arch. After all, no kid could've done that. A concerned waitress in Denver had seen the man threatening his abductees outside her diner, gotten a friend to take a photo, and notified the police.

Finally, brave Andrea Jackson (I was beginning to like this kid) had stolen a gun from her captor in Los Angeles and battled him shotgun-to-rifle on the beach. Police had arrived just in time. But in the spectacular explosion, five police cars had been destroyed and the captor had fled. No fatalities had occurred. Andrea Jackson and her two friends were safely in police custody.

The reporters fed us this whole story. We just nodded and acted tearful and exhausted (which wasn't hard), and played victimized kids for the cameras.

"All I want," I said, choking back my tears, "is to see my loving stepfather again. Every time I saw him on TV, calling me a delinquent punk, I knew ... somehow ... we would be okay. And I know he'll want to reward each and every person in this beautiful city of Los Angeles with a free major appliance from his store. Here's the phone number."

The police and reporters were so moved that they passed around the hat and raised money for three tickets on the next plane to New York. I knew there was no choice but to fly. I knew Sparky wouldn't blast me out of the sky because I have his master bolt. But it was still hard to force myself on board the flight.

Takeoff was a nightmare. Every spot of turbulence was scarier than a Greek monster. I didn't unclench my hands from the armrests until we touched down safely at La Guardia. At that moment I decided I don't like flying.

The local press was waiting for us outside security, but we managed to evade them thanks to Justin, who lured them away in his invisible Yankees cap, shouting, "They're over by the frozen yogurt! Come on!" then rejoined us at baggage claim.

We split up at the taxi stand. I told Justin and Grover to get back to Half-Blood Hill and let Chiron know what had happened. They protested, and it was hard to let them go after all we'd been through, but I knew I had to do this last part of the quest by myself. If things went wrong, if the gods didn't believe me ... I wanted Justin and Grover to survive to tell Chiron the truth.

I hopped in a taxi and headed into Manhattan.

Thirty minutes later, I walked into the lobby of the Empire State Building. I must have looked like a homeless kid, with my tattered clothes, my scraped-up face, and my long wild hair. I hadn't slept in at least twenty-four hours.

I went up to the guard at the front desk and said, "Six hundredth floor."

He was reading a huge book with a picture of a wizard on the front. I wasn't much into fantasy, but the book must've been good, because the guard took a while to look up. "No such floor, kiddo."

"I need an audience with Sparky."

He gave me a vacant smile. "Sorry?"

"I meant Zeus."

I was about to decide this guy was just a regular mortal, and I'd better run for it before he called the straitjacket patrol, when he said, "No appointment, no audience, kiddo. Lord Zeus doesn't see anyone unannounced."

"Oh, I think he'll make an exception." I slipped off my backpack and unzipped the top.

The guard looked inside at the metal cylinder, not getting what it was for a few seconds. Then his face went pale. "That isn't..."

"Yes, it is," I promised. "If Sparky's busy then—"

"No! No!" He scrambled out of his seat, fumbled around his desk for a key card, then handed it to me. "Insert this in the security slot. Make sure nobody else is in the elevator with you."

I did as he told me. As soon as the elevator doors closed, I slipped the key into the slot. The card disappeared and a new button appeared on the console, a red one that said 600.

I pressed it and waited, and waited.

Muzak played. "Raindrops keep falling on my head..."

Finally, _ding._The doors slid open. I stepped out and sucked in a breath.

I was standing on a narrow stone walkway in the middle of the air. Below me was Manhattan, from the height of an airplane. In front of me, white marble steps wound up the spine of a cloud, into the sky. My eyes followed the stairway to its end, where my brain just could not accept what I saw.

_Look again_, my brain said.

_We're looking_, my eyes insisted. _It's really there_.

"I'm insane." I said quietly with a small smile as I started walking up the stairway.

From the top of the clouds rose the decapitated peak of a mountain, its summit covered with snow. Clinging to the mountainside were dozens of multileveled palaces—a city of mansions—all with white-columned porticos, gilded terraces, and bronze braziers glowing with a thousand fires. Roads wound crazily up to the peak, where the largest palace gleamed against the snow. Precariously perched gardens bloomed with olive trees and rosebushes. I could make out an open-air market filled with colorful tents, a stone amphitheater built on one side of the mountain, a hippodrome and a coliseum on the other. It was an Ancient Greek city, except it wasn't in ruins. It was new, and clean, and colorful, the way Athens must've looked twenty-five hundred years ago.

_This place can't be here,_ I told myself.

But here it was. And here I was.

I walked through Olympus with a wonderous smile plastered on my face, I nearly memorized every detail. I passed some giggling wood nymphs who threw olives at me from their garden. Hawkers in the market offered to sell me ambrosia-on-a-stick, and a new shield, and a genuine glitter-weave replica of the Golden Fleece, as seen on Hephaestus-TV. The nine muses were tuning their instruments for a concert in the park while a small crowd gathered—satyrs and naiads and a bunch of good-looking teenagers who I think were minor gods and goddesses. Nobody seemed worried about an impending civil war. In fact, everybody seemed in a festive mood.

This made me wonder what Greece was like in its prime.

Several of the minor gods and goddesses, satyrs, and naiads turned to watch me pass, and whispered to themselves. I climbed the main road, toward the big palace at the peak. It was a reverse copy of the palace in the Underworld.

There, everything had been black and bronze. Here, everything glittered white and silver. I realized Hades must've built his palace to resemble this one. He wasn't welcomed in Olympus except on the winter solstice, so he'd built his own Olympus underground.

Despite my bad experience with him, I felt a little sorry for Mr. Doom-n'-Gloom. To be banished from this place seemed really unfair. It would make anybody bitter.

Steps led up to a central courtyard. Past that, the throne room.

_Room _really isn't the right word. The place made Grand Central Station look like a broom closet. Massive columns rose to a domed ceiling, which was gilded with moving constellations.

Twelve thrones, built for beings the size of Hades, were arranged in an inverted U, just like the cabins at Camp Half-Blood. An enormous fire crackled in the central hearth pit. The thrones were empty except for two at the end: the head throne on the right, and the one to its immediate left. I didn't have to be told who the two gods were that were sitting there, waiting for me to approach. I came toward them, my legs trembling.

The gods were in giant human form, as Hades had been, but I could barely look at them without feeling a tingle, as if my body were starting to burn. Zeus, the Lord of the Gods, wore a dark blue pinstriped suit. He sat on a simple throne of solid platinum. He had a well-trimmed beard, marbled gray and black like a storm cloud. His face was proud and handsome and grim, his eyes rainy gray.

As I got nearer to him, the air crackled and smelled of ozone. I had to let out a small laugh at that.

The god sitting next to him was his brother, without a doubt, but he was dressed very differently. He reminded me of a beachcomber from Key West. He wore leather sandals, khaki Bermuda shorts, and a Tommy Bahama shirt with coconuts and parrots all over it. His skin was deeply tanned, his hands scarred like an old-time fisherman's. His hair was black, like mine. His face had that same brooding look that had always gotten me branded a rebel. But his eyes, sea green like mine, were surrounded by sun-crinkles that told me he smiled a lot, too.

His throne was a deep-sea fisherman's chair. It was the simple swiveling kind, with a black leather seat and a built-in holster for a fishing pole. Instead of a pole, the holster held a bronze trident, flickering with green light around the tips.

The gods weren't moving or speaking, but there was tension in the air, as if they'd just finished an argument.

I approached the fisherman's throne and bowed my head. "Lord Daddy."

I heard a snort of laughter, making me smile a bit, but I dared not look up. I could feel the energy emanating from the two gods. If I said the wrong thing, I had no doubt they could blast me into dust. But the question is, _would_ they? Cuz' I've made a habit to sass gods.

To my left, Zeus spoke. "Should you not address the master of this house first, girl?"

I lifted my head a bit to look at my uncle, "Sorry, Sparky."

His eye twitched and thundered, "Show Respect! I could incinerate you where you stand girl!"

"Of course, _Lord_ Sparky," I said bowing my head once again.

"Peace, brother," Poseidon said cutting in. His voice stirred my oldest memories: that warm glow I remembered as a baby, the sensation of this god's hand on my forehead, "The girl defers to her father. This is only right. And I will not have you hurt my Daughter."

"You still claim her then?" Zeus asked, menacingly. "You claim this child whom you sired against our sacred oath?"

"I have admitted my wrongdoing," Poseidon said. "Now I would hear her speak."

A lump welled up in my throat. Was that all I was? A wrongdoing? The result of a god's mistake? Love you too dad.

I would've been mad but then a memory came back to me,

_"My father... he cared about me, right?" I asked innocently._

_"Andrea," my mom started in a soft tone. "Of course he does."_

_"How do you know?"_

_"Because I saw the look in his eyes when I told him about you... he didn't want to leave, he had to."_

I shook the memory out of my head and decided to believe my mom. With that I turned my focus back to the arguing gods in front of me, but kept facing the floor.

"I have spared her once already," Zeus grumbled. "Daring to fly through my domain ... pah! I should have blasted her out of the sky for her impudence."

"And risk destroying your own master bolt?" Poseidon asked calmly. "Let us hear her out, brother."

Zeus grumbled some more. "I shall listen," he decided. "Then I shall make up my mind whether or not to cast this girl down from Olympus."

"Alejandrina," Poseidon said. "Look at me."

I did, and I wasn't sure what I saw in his face. There was no clear sign of love or approval. Nothing to encourage me. It was like looking at the ocean: some days, you could tell what mood it was in. Most days, though, it was unreadable, mysterious. I smiled, that's how Aunt Rosie would always describe me.

Because of his awkward word choice, I got the feeling Poseidon really didn't know what to think of me and I wasn't sure about him yet, either.

"Address Lord Zeus, girl," Poseidon told me. "Tell him your story."

So I told Sparky everything, just as it had happened. I took out the metal cylinder, which began sparking in the Sky God's presence, and laid it at his feet. There was a long silence, broken only by the crackle of the hearth fire.

Sparky opened his palm. The lightning bolt flew into it. As he closed his fist, the metallic points flared with electricity, until he was holding what looked more like the classic thunderbolt, a twenty-foot javelin of arcing, hissing energy that made the hairs on my scalp rise.

"I sense the girl tells the truth," Sparky muttered. "But that Ares would do such a thing ... it is most unlike him."

"He is proud and impulsive," Poseidon said. "It runs in the family."

_Your part of the family._

"Lord?" I asked.

They both said, "Yes?"

"Ares didn't act alone. Someone else came up with the idea."

I described my dreams, and the feeling I'd had on the beach, that momentary breath of evil that had seemed to stop the world, and made Ares back off from killing me.

"In the dreams," I said, "the voice told me to bring the bolt to the Underworld. Ares hinted that he'd been having dreams, too. I think he was being used, just as I was, to start a war."

"You are accusing Hades, after all?" Sparky asked.

"No," I said. "I mean, Lord Sparky, I've been in the presence of Hades. This feeling on the beach was different. It was the same thing I felt when I got close to that pit. That was the entrance to Tartarus, wasn't it? Something powerful and evil is stirring down there ... something even older than the gods."

Poseidon and Sparky looked at each other. They had a quick, intense discussion in Ancient Greek. My description of it in fiver words would be, Kronos and Sparky is stupid.

Poseidon made a suggestion to check on him in Tartarus and talk to Uncle Hades and get his opinion, but Sparky cut him off. Poseidon tried to argue. Sparky held up his hand angrily. "We will speak of this no more," Sparky said. "Now I must personally to purify this thunderbolt in the waters of Lemnos, to remove the human taint from its metal."

He rose and looked at me. His expression softened just a fraction of a degree. "You have done me a service, girl. Few heroes could have accomplished as much."

"I had help, sir," I said. "Grover Underwood and Justin Chase—"

"To show you my thanks, I shall spare your life. I do not trust you, Alejandrina Jackson. I do not like what your arrival means for the future of Olympus. But for the sake of peace in the family, I shall let you live."

"For the second time today? Careful I might actually start thinking you care."

"Do not presume to fly again. Do not let me find you here when I return. Otherwise you shall taste this bolt. And it shall be your last sensation."

Thunder shook the palace. With a blinding flash of lightning, Sparky was gone. Dramatic much. I think he should be the god of theatre.

I was alone in the throne room with my father. "Your uncle," Poseidon sighed, "has always had a flair for dramatic exits. I think he would've done well as the god of theater."

I laughed, "That's what I was thinking."

Poseidon, my dad, smiled.

"Lord daddy," I said, "what was in that pit?"

Poseidon regarded me. "Have you not guessed?"

"Kronos," I said. "The king of the Titans. And a lot of...others."

Even in the throne room of Olympus, far away from Tartarus, the name _Kronos _darkened the room, made the hearth fire seem not quite so warm on my back. I should start calling him PP again.

My dad gripped his trident. "In the First War, Andrea, Zeus cut our father Kronos into a thousand pieces, just as Kronos had done to his own father, Ouranos. Zeus cast Kronos's remains into the darkest pit of Tartarus. The Titan army was scattered, their mountain fortress on Etna destroyed, their monstrous allies driven to the farthest corners of the earth. And yet Titans cannot die, any more than we gods can. Whatever is left of Kronos is still alive in some hideous way, still conscious in his eternal pain, still hungering for power."

"He's healing," I said. "He's coming back."

Poseidon shook his head. "From time to time, over the eons, Kronos has stirred. He enters men's nightmares and breathes evil thoughts. He wakens restless monsters from the depths. But to suggest he could rise from the pit is another thing."

"That's what he intends, Lord daddy. That's what he said."

Poseidon was silent for a long time.

"Lord Zeus has closed discussion on this matter. He will not allow talk of Kronos. You have completed your quest, child. That is all you need to do."

"But—" I stopped myself. Arguing would do no good. It would very possibly anger the only god who I had on my side. "As ... as you wish, Lord daddy."

A faint smile played on his lips. "Obedience does not come naturally to you, does it?"

"Nope."

"I must take some blame for that, I suppose. The sea does not like to be restrained." He rose to his full height and took up his trident. Then he shimmered and became the size of a regular man, standing directly in front of me. "You must go, child. But first, know that your mother has returned."

I stared at him, completely stunned, then smiled. "She has?"

"You will find her at home. Hades sent her when you recovered his helm. Even the Lord of Death pays his debts."

My heart was pounding. I couldn't believe it. "I ... ah... would you... uh..."

I didn't know what to say. I million thing were going through my mind at a thousand miles per minute pace.

Poseidon's eyes took on a little sadness. "When you return home, Andrea, you must make an important choice. You will find a package waiting in your room."

"A package?"

"You will understand when you see it. No one can choose your path, Andrea. You must decide."

I nodded, though I didn't know what he meant.

"Your mother is a queen among women," Poseidon said wistfully. "I had not met such a mortal woman in a thousand years. Still ... I am sorry you were born, child. I have brought you a hero's fate, and a hero's fate is never happy. It is never anything but tragic."

For a second, I thought he was saying he wished I wasn't born before I brushed it aside, "I don't mind, Lord daddy."

"Not yet, perhaps," he said. "Not yet. But it was an unforgivable mistake on my part."

Is he sorry for the life that I have because he's my father?

"I'll leave you then." I bowed awkwardly, not knowing what to say. "I—I won't bother you again?"

I was five steps away when he called, "Alejandrina."

I turned.

There was a different light in his eyes, a fiery kind of pride. "You did well, Alejandrina. Do not misunderstand me. Whatever else you do, know that you are mine. You are a true daughter of the Sea God."

I broke into a wide smile, "I understand you. And don't be sorry, a hero's fate may be tragic, but I _sure _my won't be. Also my birth is not a unforgivable mistake, just... Unexpected."

As I walked back through the city of the gods, conversations stopped. The muses paused their concert. People and satyrs and naiads all turned toward me, their faces filled with respect and gratitude, and as I passed, they knelt, as if I were some kind of hero. And I guess I was.

Fifteen minutes later, still in a trance, I was back on the streets of Manhattan.

I caught a taxi to my mom's apartment, rang the door bell, and there she was—my beautiful mother, smelling of peppermint and licorice, the weariness and worry evaporating from her face as soon as she saw me- with my amazing, wonderful aunt right beside her.

"Jannie! Oh, thank goodness. Oh, my baby."

She crushed the air right out of me. We stood in the hallway as she cried and ran her hands through my hair. I'll admit it—my eyes were a little misty, too. I was shaking, I was so relieved to see her.

"Alright Sally, move over I want to hug her to," Rosie said with a welcoming smile, before held me in a tight hug.

My mom told me she'd just appeared at the apartment that morning, scaring Gabe and Rosie half out of their wits (Rosie was moving my mom's and my stuff in her house, because Gabe would most likely sell everything). She didn't remember anything since the Minotaur, and couldn't believe it when Gabe told her I was a wanted criminal, traveling across the country, blowing up national monuments. She'd been going out of her mind with worry all day because she hadn't heard the news. Gabe had forced her to go into work, saying she had a month's salary to make up and she'd better get started (Rosie- my mom's _boss-_ almost slapped him).

I swallowed back my anger and some pride for my aunt and told them my own story. I tried to make it sound less scary than it had been, but that wasn't easy. I was just getting to the fight with Ares when Gabe's voice interrupted from the living room. "Hey, Sally! That meat loaf done yet or what?"

She closed her eyes. "He isn't going to be happy to see you, Jannie. The store got half a million phone calls today from Los Angeles ... something about free appliances."

I smirked, "Oh, yeah. About that..."

She managed a weak smile. "Just don't make him angrier, all right?

"Fine, but no promises."

"Come on."

In the month I'd been gone, the apartment had turned into Gabeland. Garbage was ankle-deep on the carpet. The sofa had been reupholstered in beer cans. Dirty socks and underwear hung off the lampshades. Gabe and three of his big goony friends were playing poker at the table.

When Gabe saw me, his cigar dropped out of his mouth. His face got redder than lava. "You got nerve coming here, you little punk. I thought the police—"

"She's not a fugitive after all," my mom interjected as Aunt Rosie placed her hands on my shoulders. "Isn't that wonderful, Gabe?"

Gabe looked back and forth between us. He didn't seem to think my homecoming was so wonderful.

"Bad enough I had to give back your life insurance money, Sally," he growled. "Get me the phone. I'll call the cops."

"Gabe, no!"

He raised his eyebrows. "Did you just say_'no'?_You think I'm gonna put up with this punk again? I can still press charges against her for ruining my Camaro."

"But—"

He raised his hand, and my mother flinched. For the first time, I realized something. Gabe had hit my mother. I didn't know when, or how much. But I was sure he'd done it. Maybe _it _had been going on for years, when I wasn't around. A balloon of anger started expanding in my chest. I came toward Gabe, instinctively placing a hand on my bracelet.

He just laughed. "What are you going to do, punk? You touch me, and you are going to jail forever, you understand?"

"Hey, Gabe," his friend Eddie interrupted. "She's just a kid."

Gabe looked at him resentfully and mimicked in a falsetto voice:_"Just a kid."_

His other friends laughed like idiots.

"I'll be nice to you, punk." Gabe showed me his tobacco-stained teeth. "I'll give you five minutes to get your stuff and clear out. After that, I call the police."

"Gabe!" my mother pleaded.

"She ran away," Gabe told her. "Let her stay gone."

I was itching to take Riptide and..., but even if I did, the blade wouldn't hurt humans. And Gabe, by the loosest definition, was human.

My mother took my arm. "Please, Jannie. Come on. We'll go to your room."

I let her pull me away, my hands still trembling with rage.

My room had been completely filled with Gabe's junk. There were stacks of used car batteries, a rotting bouquet of sympathy flowers with a card from somebody who'd seen his Barbara Walters interview.

"Gabe is just upset, honey," my mother told me. "I'll talk to him later. I'm sure it will work out."

"Mom, it'll never work out. Not as long as Gabe's here."

Rosie nodded with a scowl, "She's right Sally. Don't get me wrong many parents of demigods have used the same technique your using, but that _man_ is by far the worst_ tool_ I have ever hear of or seen in this case. "

She wrung her hands nervously. "I can work this out... I'll take you to work with me for the rest of the summer, I'm sure Rosie's fine with that. In the fall, maybe there's another boarding school—"

"Mom."

She lowered her eyes. "I'm trying, Andrea. I just... I need some time."

"Sally," Aunt Rosie sighed. "She doesn't need for _you_ to protect her, not anymore. She needs to learn how to protect herself... she's not a little girl. She needs to go to camp. "

A package appeared on my bed. At least, I could've sworn it hadn't been there a moment before. It was a battered cardboard box about the right size to fit a basketball. The address on the mailing slip was in my own handwriting:

_The Gods_

_Mount Olympus_

_600th Floor,_

_Empire State Building_

_New York, NY_

_xoxo,_

_ANDREA JACKSON_

Over the top in black marker, in a man's clear, bold print, was the address of our apartment, and the words: RETURN TO SENDER.

Suddenly I understood what Poseidon had told me on Olympus.

A package. A decision.

_Whatever else you do, know that you are mine. You are a true daughter of the Sea God._

I looked at my mother. "Mom, do you want Gabe gone?"

"Andrea, it isn't that simple. I—"

"Mom, just tell me. That jackass has been hitting you. Do you want him gone or not?"

She hesitated, then nodded almost imperceptibly. "Yes, Andrea. I do. And I'm trying to get up my courage to tell him. But you can't do this for me. You can't solve my problems."

I looked at the box.

I _could _solve her problem. I wanted to slice that package open, plop it on the poker table, and take out what was inside. I could start my very own statue garden, right there in the living room.

_That's what a Greek hero would do in the stories,_ I thought. _That's what Gabe deserves._

But a hero's story always ended in tragedy. Poseidon had told me that.

I remembered the Underworld. I thought about Gabe's spirit drifting forever in the Fields of Asphodel, or condemned to some hideous torture behind the barbed wire of the Fields of Punishment—an eternal poker game, sitting up to his waist in boiling oil listening to opera music. Did I have the right to send someone there? Even Gabe?

A month ago, I wouldn't have hesitated. Now ...

"I can do it," I told my mom. "One look inside this box, and he'll never bother you again."

Both my Mom and Aunt glanced at the package, and seemed to understand immediately. "No, Andrea," Mom said, stepping away. "You can't."

"Poseidon called you a queen," I told her. "He said he hadn't met a woman like you in a thousand years."

Her cheeks flushed and Aunt Rosie raised her eyebrows with a teasing smile. "Andrea—"

"You deserve better than this, Mom. You should go to college, get your degree. You can write your novel, meet a nice guy, live in a nice house. You don't need to protect me anymore by staying with Gabe. Let me get rid of him."

She wiped a tear off her cheek. "You sound so much like your father," she said. "He offered to stop the tide for me once. He offered to build me a palace at the bottom of the sea. He thought he could solve all my problems with a wave of his hand."

"What's wrong with that?"

Her multicolored eyes seemed to search inside me. "I think you know, Andrea. I think you're enough like me to understand. If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself. I can't let a god take care of me ... or my daughter. I have to ... find the courage on my own. Your quest has reminded me of that."

I sighed she was right, if there is one thing I know how to do is take care of myself. Not that my mom hasn't, she has, but I've been going to boarding schools since I was six and when I was home, for three and a half months. Other than that I had to learn to do things myself, I had to teach my self because of stupid teachers, I taught myself to pickpocket if I ever needed money, I learned how to get money honestly (by illegally selling candy out of my dorm room at boarding schools), and I taught myself how to sword fight because I have something against Luke (who didn't _really_ do anything to me). I've always done things myself, not because I had to, but because I raised myself that way. I was always the lone wolf... untill Grover and Justin.

Now, I don't need to be alone. I have my family, my friends, and camp. I _don't _need to be alone.

I let out another sigh and smiled.

Then I emerged from my own world and joined my mom and aunt listening to the sound of poker chips and swearing, ESPN from the living room television. My smile fell and anger returned.

"I'll leave the box," I said. "If he threatens you …"

She looked pale, but she nodded. "Where will you go, Andrea?"

"Half-Blood Hill."

Rosie cut in, "I'll drive you."

After nodding in agreement, my mom sighed and asked, "For the summer ... or forever?"

At the beginning of the summer I would've said, _'I would_ never_ forever' . _But now, things have changed, "I guess that depends."

We locked eyes, and I sensed that we had an agreement. We would see how things stood at the end of the summer.

She stroked my hair, "You'll be a hero, Andrea. You'll be the greatest of all."

I smiled at her, "You always say that."

She kissed my head, "because I mean it."

She then turned to Rosie and hugged her, "See you when I go to work tomorrow."

"See you then."

I took one last look around my bedroom. I had a feeling I'd never see it again. Then I walked with my mother and aunt to the front door.

"Leaving so soon, punk?" Gabe called after me. "Good riddance."

I had one last twinge of doubt. How could I turn down the perfect chance to take revenge on him? I was leaving here without saving my mother.

"Hey, Sally," he yelled. "What about that meat loaf, huh?"

A steely look of anger flared in my mother's eyes, and I thought, just maybe, I was leaving her in good hands after all. Her own.

"The meat loaf is coming right up, dear," she told Gabe. "Meat loaf surprise."

She looked at me, and winked. The last thing I saw as the door swung closed was my mother staring at Gabe, as if she were contemplating how he would look as a garden statue.

I chuckled and walked to my aunt's red 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429. In front of the passenger door I stopped and turned, taking one last look at the appartement building I grew up in. I heard the driver door open and Rosie get out of her set, " Are you going to miss it?"

I turned to her confused, "I never made the decision to stay at camp."

"Well, even if you do come back to the mortal world at the of the summer you won't come _here_."

"Then where?"

"As soon as Sally get's rid of Gabe your moving in with me."

"Two demigods living under the same roof, what could go wrong?" I said sarcastically as I climbed into the car.

Rosie followed my lead and smiled as she change the car's gear from parked to reverse, "A whole hell lot of things."

I turned and looked back, _...Yes... I will miss it. After all, it was home._

* * *

**So what do you think? **

**P.S. Rosie's personality may have changed a bit because I haven't written about her in so long. **


	23. Chapter 23

**Well, this is it... The ending of my first story. I want to thank all who read it and all who reviewed, favorited, and followed it. I hope you guys Like/liked the chapter/story.**

**ENJOY!**

* * *

The drive to camp was filled with music from my mix CD that I made last year. After 2 long hours, I was met with the sight on a familiar strawberry field and giant pine tree. I got out of the car and started up half-blood hill, determined not to turn around otherwise I would want to go home.

"JANNIE!"

Turning I saw Rosie running up the hill after me, when she reached me she pulled me into a hug, "Think you're going to leave without saying goodbye."

I was silent as I hugged the woman I saw as a second mother.

She broke the hug and stared at me with watery eyes, "I'm going to come and visit when I can. Okay? And your mom's will probably employ me to bring you stuff from her."

I nodded with a small smile on my face, happy that even if I chose to stay at camp my family will still be in contact with me.

Rosie brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, "Do you know what your mom told me when she got back? 'I must have had my eyes closed pretty shut, to not see what a beautiful, independent, young women, she has become.'"

She let out a small laugh, "I must have had my eyes closed pretty tightly, too. It seems as if it was just yesterday that you were running around in the candy shop and nearly broke every shelf AND dispenser and COVERED the whole floor with candy. Then you would look at your mother and me with big innocent eyes and in your sweetest voice say, 'uh-oh'. And now your... saving the world."

I gave her a big smile as she stared straight into my eyes, "Your mother and I always knew you where special. But now you proved it to everyone. It's going to be tough, but just remember you always have Grover and Justin, you always will have your mother, and you will always have me."

With that she sent me up the hill, when I reached the top I turned back to Rosie and waved. She called out to me, "Try and make some more friends."

"I promise!"

I entered camp borders.

We were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, so of course everybody treated us as if we'd won some reality-TV contest.

According to camp tradition, we wore laurel wreaths to a big feast prepared in our honor, then led a procession down to the bonfire, where we got to burn the burial shrouds our cabins had made for us in our absence. Justin's shroud was so beautiful—gray silk with embroidered owls. Being the daughter of Poseidon, I didn't have any cabin mates, so the Ares cabin had volunteered to make my shroud. They'd taken an old bed sheet and painted smiley faces with X'ed-out eyes around the border, and the word LOSER painted really big in the middle.

It was fun to burn. And after I was done with that I may have 'accidentally' _misplaced_ all of the contents of their cabin in the middle of the lake. In my defence... they started it.

As Apollo's cabin led the sing-along and passed out s'mores, I was surrounded by my old Hermes cabin mates, Justin's siblings from Athena, and Grover's satyr buddies, who were admiring the brand-new searcher's license he'd received from the Council of Cloven Elders. The council had called Grover's performance on the quest "Brave to the point of indigestion. Horns-and-whiskers above anything we have seen in the past."

Satyrs.

The only ones not in a party mood were Clarisse and her cabin mates, whose poisonous looks told me they'd never forgive me for disgracing their dad. That was okay with me and I made sure they knew it by sending smug smirks in direction when ever I caught their looks. Even Dionysus's welcome-home speech wasn't enough to dampen my spirits. "Yes, yes, so the little brat didn't get herself killed and now she'll have an even bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be _no _canoe races this Saturday..."

I moved back into cabin three, but it didn't feel so lonely anymore. I had my friends to train with during the day. At night, I lay awake and listened to the sea, knowing my father was out there. Maybe he wasn't quite sure about me yet, but he was watching. And so far, he was proud of what I'd done.

As for my mother, she had a chance at a new life. Her letter arrived a week after I got back to camp, delivered by Aunt Rosie. She told me Gabe had left mysteriously—disappeared off the face of the planet, in fact. She'd reported him missing to the police, but she had a funny feeling they would never find him. On a completely unrelated subject, she'd sold her first life-size concrete sculpture, entitled _The Poker Player,_to a collector, through an art gallery in Soho.

She'd gotten so much money for it, she'd made a payment on her first semester's tuition at NYU (Aunt Rosie said she was also going to deposit down on a new admartment, so that we wouldn't bother Rosie. That idea was short lived). The Soho gallery was clamoring for more of her work, which they called "a huge step forward in super-ugly neorealism." _But don't worry, _my mom wrote. _I'm done with sculpture. I've disposed of that box of tools you left me. It's time for me to turn to writing._

At the bottom, she wrote a P.S.:_ Jannie, I've found a good private school here in the city. I've put a deposit down to hold you a spot, in case you want to enroll for seventh grade. You could live at home. But if you want to go year-round at Half-Blood Hill, I'll understand._

I folded the note carefully and set it on my bedside table. Every night before I went to sleep, I read it again, and I tried to decide how to answer her.

On the Fourth of July, the whole camp gathered at the beach for a fireworks display by cabin nine. Being Hephaestus's kids, they weren't going to settle for a few lame red-white-and-blue explosions. They'd anchored a barge offshore and loaded it with rockets the size of Patriot missiles. According to Justin, who'd seen the show before, the blasts would be sequenced so tightly they'd look like frames of animation across the sky. The finale was supposed to be a couple of hundred-foot-tall Spartan warriors who would crackle to life above the ocean, fight a battle, then explode into a million colors.

As Justin and I were spreading a picnic blanket, Grover showed up to tell us good-bye. He was dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt and sneakers, but in the last few weeks he'd started to look older, almost high-school age. His goatee had gotten thicker. He'd put on weight. His horns had grown at least an inch, so he now had to wear his rasta cap all the time to pass as human.

"I'm off," he said. "I just came to say ... well, you know."

I tried to feel happy for him. After all, it wasn't every day a satyr got permission to go look for the great god Pan. But it was hard saying good-bye. I'd only known Grover a year, yet he was my oldest friend.

Grover held his arms out I stepped backward and gave him a teasing smile, "Grove, you know I don't do hugs? But keep your fake feet on. Out of curiosity, where are you going to search first?"

"Kind of a secret," he said, looking embarrassed. "I wish you could come with me, guys, but humans and Pan …"

"We understand," Justin said. "You got everything you need for the trip?"

"Yeah."

He gripped his walking stick and slung a backpack over his shoulder. He looked like any hitchhiker you might see on an American highway—nothing like the little runty boy I used to defend from bullies at Yancy Academy.

"Well," he said, "wish me luck."

I allowed him to give me hug. He clapped Justin on the shoulder, then headed back through the dunes. Fireworks exploded to life overhead: Hercules killing the Nemean lion, Artemis chasing the boar, George Washington (who was a son of Athena) crossing the Delaware.

"Hey, Grover," I called.

He turned at the edge of the woods.

"Wherever you're going—I hope they make good enchiladas."

Grover grinned, and then he was gone, the trees closing around him.

"We'll see him again," Justin said.

I tried to believe it. The fact that no searcher had ever come back in two thousand years ... well, I decided not to think about that. Grover would be the first. He had to be.

July passed.

I spent my days devising new strategies for capture-the-flag and making alliances with the other cabins to keep the banner out of Ares's hands. I got to the top of the climbing wall for the first time without getting scorched by lava.

I had made other friends like I promised Aunt Rosie; Charles Beckendorf, son of Hephaestus, he can make anything out of anything. Travis and Connor Stoll, sons of Hermes, I quickly learned to keep an eye on my stuff in their presence. Katie Gardner, daughter of Demeter, she is very kind and patient, unless the Stolls are involved. Will Solace, son of Apollo, he tried to help me with archery before we decided it was an impossible task. I also am friendlier towards Luke, because Justin is making me, I guess his not all bad. Anyway, my little search for friends has made me realise that I get along better with guys and girls.

From time to time, I'd walk past the Big House, glance up at the attic windows, and think about the Oracle. I would sit at the edge of the creek where I met my first hellhound at the beginning of the summer and try to convince myself that its prophecy had come to completion.

_You shall go west, and face the god who has turned._

Been there, done that—even though the traitor god had turned out to be Ares rather than Hades.

_You shall find what was stolen, and see it safe returned._

Check. One master bolt delivered. One helm of darkness back on Hades's oily head.

_You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend._

This line still bothered me. Ares had pretended to be my friend, then betrayed me. But I don't know...

_And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end._

I _had _failed to save my mom, but only because I'd let her save herself, and I knew that was the right thing.

The last night of the summer session came all too quickly.

The campers had one last meal together. We burned part of our dinner for the gods. At the bonfire, the senior counselors awarded the end-of-summer beads. I got my own leather necklace, and when I saw the bead for my first summer, I was glad the firelight covered my blushing. The design was pitch black, with a sea-green trident shimmering in the center.

"The choice was unanimous," Luke announced."This bead commemorates the first Daughter of the Sea God at this camp, and the quest she undertook into the darkest part of the Underworld to stop a war!"

The entire camp got to their feet and cheered. Even Ares's cabin felt obliged to stand. Athena's cabin steered Justin to the front so he could share in the applause. I'm not sure I'd ever felt as happy or sad as I did at that moment. I'd finally found a family, people who cared about me and thought I'd done something right. And in the morning, most of them would be leaving for the year.

The next morning, I found a form letter on my bedside table. I knew Dionysus must've filled it out, because he stubbornly insisted on getting my name wrong:

_Dear_Angelica_ Johnson_____,_

_If you intend to stay at Camp Half-Blood year-round, you must inform the Big House by noon today. If you do not announce your intentions, we will assume you have vacated your cabin or died a horrible death. Cleaning harpies will begin work at sundown. They will be authorized to eat any unregistered campers. All personal articles left behind will be incinerated in the lava pit._

_Have a nice day!_

_Mr. D (Dionysus)_

_Camp Director, Olympian Council #12_

That's another thing about ADHD. Deadlines just aren't real to me until I'm staring one in the face. Summer was over, and I still hadn't answered my mother, or the camp, about whether I'd be staying. Now I had only a few hours to decide.

The decision should have been easy.

But there was my mom to consider. For the first time, I had the chance to live with her for a whole year, without Gabe, and to sweeten the deal I also get to live with my Aunt. I had a chance be at home and knock around the city in my free time. I remembered what Justin had said so long ago on our quest: _The real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're any good or not._

I thought about the fate of Thalia, daughter of Zeus. I wondered how many monsters would attack me if I left Half-Blood Hill. If I stayed in one place for a whole school year, without Chiron or my friends around to help me, with my mother and my Aunt, ANOTHER demigod. Would I even survive until the next summer?

I decided I'd go down to the creek in the forest, where I broke Clarisse's speaar the first caputre the flag game, and maybe practice my hydrokinesis or draw. That would clear my head.

The campgrounds were mostly deserted, shimmering in the August heat. All the campers were in their cabins packing up, or running around with brooms and mops, getting ready for final inspection. Argus was helping some of the Aphrodite kids haul their Gucci suitcases and makeup kits over the hill, where the camp's shuttle bus would be waiting to take them to the airport.

_Don't think about leaving yet_, I told myself.

When I got to the creek I stopped and listened, I listened to the birds chirping, the sound of the water moving in front of me, and the sound of wind rustling the leaves. I smiled at certain trees around the creek the ones that I know to be occupied by nymphs, took my shoes off and stepped into the creek. Once in the middle of the creek I lowered my hand and moved it over the surface of the water before bring it up with water following.

It was like I was holding a fork with a string of water attached to the bottom. As the water slowly traveled up the string thickening and growing. Soon, I had a water trident in my hand and even thought it was made of water it was very solid.

_Snap!_

I lost my focus and the trident slashed back into the water. I turned and saw Luke. I glared at him, mad that he made me lose my focus.

He walked towards me and stopped at the edge of the creek, staring at the water, "How long were you able to do that?"

My glared softened when I remembered my promise to Justin regarding Luke, t_ry to befriend him, _"Ever since my fight with Ares I have tested my power over water and my control."

"That's amazing."

I sent him a small smile, "Thanks. So, why are you out here."

"Oh, I saw you heading into the woods and was worried you going off camp grounds to face some horrible monster."

I looked at him, he had a sword at his side,I could see something odd about it. The blade was two different types of metal—one edge bronze, the other steel, "Sorry to disappoint."

He looked at me questionably.

"I see that you came prepared," I said with my eyes still on the unusual sword.

Luke noticed me looking at it. "Oh, this? New toy. This is Backbiter."

"Backbiter?"

Luke turned the blade in the light so it glinted wickedly. "One side is celestial bronze. The other is tempered steel. Works on mortals and immortals both."

I thought about what Chiron had told me when I started my quest—that a hero should never harm mortals unless absolutely necessary.

"I didn't know they could make weapons like that."

_"They _probably can't," Luke agreed. "It's one of a kind."

I nodded, backed further into the water, and waited for him to go away. He did. But for a short while and came back carrying his gym bag. _Aww, come on. Can't this guy take a hint._

I glared again as he rummaged in his gym bag and pulled out a six-pack of Cokes. "Drinks are on me."

I was about to refuse, but then I remembered Justin. So, I put on a smile (a fake one, but I don't know anyone who could see through it) and walked out of the water, to him a took a coke, "Thanks."

I picked up my shoes and found a shady spot by the creek, sat on a big rock, and set my coke next to me as I tried to wipe the wet dirt that was stuck to my feet.

Luke said, "You miss being on a quest?"

"With monsters attacking me every three feet? Yeah, I miss it," I admitted. "You?"

A shadow passed over his face.

I was used to hearing from other girls how good-looking Luke was, but at the moment, he looked weary, and angry, and not at all handsome. His blond hair was gray in the sunlight. The scar on his face looked deeper than usual. I could imagine him as an old man.

"I've lived at Half-Blood Hill year-round since I was fourteen," he told me. "Ever since Thalia ... well, you know. I trained, and trained, and trained. I never got to be a normal teenager, out there in the real world. Then they threw me one quest, and when I came back, it was like, 'Okay, ride's over. Have a nice life.'"

He crumpled his Coke can and threw into the creek, which really shocked me. One of the first things you learn at Camp Half-Blood is: Don't litter. You'll hear from the nymphs and the naiads. They'll get even. You'll crawl into bed one night and find your sheets filled with centipedes and mud.

"The heck with laurel wreaths," Luke said. "I'm not going to end up like those dusty trophies in the Big House attic."

"You make it sound like you're leaving."

Luke gave me a twisted smile. "Oh, I'm leaving, all right, Andrea."

He snapped his fingers. A small fire burned a hole in the ground at my feet. Out crawled something glistening black, about the size of my hand. A scorpion.

I started to go for my bracelet.

"I wouldn't," Luke cautioned. "Pit scorpions can jump up to fifteen feet. Its stinger can pierce right through your clothes. You'll be dead in sixty seconds."

_You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend._

"You," I said.

He stood calmly and brushed off his jeans. The scorpion paid him no attention. It kept its beady black eyes on me, clamping its pincers as it crawled onto my bare foot.

"I saw a lot out there in the world, Andrea," Luke said. "Didn't you feel it—the darkness gathering, the monsters growing stronger? Didn't you realize how useless it all is? All the heroics—being pawns of the gods. They should've been overthrown thousands of years ago, but they've hung on, thanks to us half-bloods."

I glared at him.

"Luke ... you're talking about our parents," I said.

He laughed. "That's supposed to make me love them? Their precious 'Western civilization is a disease, Andrea. It's killing the world. The only way to stop it is to burn it to the ground, start over with something more honest."

"You're as crazy as Ares."

His eyes flared. "Ares is a fool. He never realized the true master he was serving. If I had time, Andrea, I could explain."

The scorpion crawled up my leg and onto my shorts. There had to be a way out of this. I needed time to think.

"Kronos," I said. "That's who you serve."

The air got colder.

"You should be careful with names," Luke warned.

"Kronos got you to steal the master bolt and the helm. He spoke to you in your dreams."

Luke's eye twitched. "He spoke to you, too, Andrea. You should've listened."

"He's brainwashing you, Luke."

"You're wrong. He showed me that my talents are being wasted. You know what my quest was two years ago, Andrea? My father, Hermes, wanted me to steal a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides and return it to Olympus. After all the training I'd done, _that _was the best he could think up."

"That's not an easy quest," I said. "Hercules did it."

"Exactly," Luke said. "Where's the glory in repeating what others have done? All the gods know how to do is replay their past. My heart wasn't in it. The dragon in the garden gave me this"—he pointed angrily at his scar—"and when I came back, all I got was pity. I wanted to pull Olympus down stone by stone right then, but I bided my time. I began to dream of Kronos. He convinced me to steal something worthwhile, something no hero -"

"You're no hero."

"- had ever had the courage to take," He continued ignoring me. "When we went on that winter-solstice field trip, while the other campers were asleep, I snuck into the throne room and took Zeus's master bolt right from his chair. Hades's helm of darkness, too. You wouldn't believe how easy it was. The Olympians are so arrogant; they never dreamed someone would dare steal from them. Their security is horrible. I was halfway across New Jersey before I heard the storms rumbling, and I knew they'd discovered my theft."

The scorpion was sitting on my thigh, staring at me with its glittering eyes. I kept my voice level. "So why didn't you bring the items to Kronos?"

Luke's smile wavered. "I ... I got overconfident. Zeus sent out his sons and daughters to find the stolen bolt— Artemis, Apollo, my father, Hermes. But it was Ares who caught me. I could have beaten him, but I wasn't careful enough. He disarmed me, took the items of power, threatened to return them to Olympus and burn me alive. Then Kronos's voice came to me and told me what to say. I put the idea in Ares's head about a great war between the gods. I said all he had to do was hide the items away for a while and watch the others fight. Ares got a wicked gleam in his eyes. I knew he was hooked. He let me go, and I returned to Olympus before anyone noticed my absence."

Luke drew his new sword. He ran his thumb down the flat of the blade, as if he were hypnotized by its beauty.

"Afterward, the Lord of the Titans ... h-he punished me with nightmares. I swore not to fail again. Back at Camp Half-Blood, in my dreams, I was told that a second hero would arrive, one who could be tricked into taking the bolt and the helm the rest of the way—from Ares down to Tartarus."

"_You _summoned the hellhound, that night in the forest."

"We had to make Chiron think the camp wasn't safe for you, so he would start you on your quest. We had to confirm his fears that Hades was after you. And it worked."

"The flying shoes were cursed," I said. "They were supposed to drag me and the backpack into Tartarus."

"And they would have, if you'd been wearing them. But you gave them to the satyr, which wasn't part of the plan. Grover messes up everything he touches. He even confused the curse."

Luke looked down at the scorpion, which was now sit ting on my thigh. "You should have died in Tartarus, Andrea. But you didn't. And you caught his attention in the process. So, he has decided to give you one more chance."

"Huh?"

"Join me in raising Kronos. Stop being a pawn of the gods. If you do, you shall become a queen."

_Queen?_

"Huh?"

"Lord Kronos wishes to make you his wife, queen of the titans."

"Am I being proposed to?"

Luke smirked at moved closer to me, "Think of all that power. Think of all the Glory. Think of all that could be yours. Make your decision, but kept in mind that nobody gets this opportunity."

I looked down, "I suppose your right, this doesn't happen everyday... but you can tell your lord of the paedophiles, that he can kiss my ass."

Luke's smirk was wiped of his face, "Then, I'll just leave you with my little friend."

"Thalia gave her life to save you," I said, gritting my teeth. "And this is how you repay her?"

"Don't speak of Thalia!" he shouted. "The gods _let _her die! That's one of the many things they will pay for."

"You're being used, Luke. You and Ares both. Don't listen to Kronos."

_"I've _been used?" Luke's voice turned shrill. "Look at yourself. What has your dad ever done for you? Kronos will rise. You've only delayed his plans. He will cast the Olympians into Tartarus and drive humanity back to their caves. All except the strongest—the ones who serve him."

"Call off the bug," I said. "If you're so strong, fight me yourself"

Luke smiled. "Nice try, Andrea. But I'm not Ares. You can't bait me. My lord is waiting, and he's got plenty of quests for me to undertake."

"Luke—"

"Good-bye, Andrea. There is a new Golden Age coming. You won't be part of it."

"Go to fucking hell, you idiotic bag of genuine crap."

He slashed his sword in an arc and disappeared in a ripple of darkness. The scorpion lunged. I swatted it away with my hand and changed my sword. The thing jumped at me and I cut it in half in midair.

I was about to congratulate myself until I looked down at my hand. My palm had a huge red welt, oozing and smoking with yellow guck. The thing had gotten me after all.

My ears pounded. My vision went foggy. The water, I thought. It healed me before. I stumbled to the creek and submerged my hand, but nothing seemed to happen. The poison was too strong. My vision was getting dark. I could barely stand up.

_Sixty seconds, _Luke had told me.

I had to get back to camp. If I collapsed out here, my body would be dinner for a monster. Nobody would ever know what had happened.

My legs felt like lead. My forehead was burning. I stumbled toward the camp, and the nymphs stirred from their trees.

"Help," I croaked.

Two of them took my arms, pulling me along. I remember making it to the clearing, a counselor shouting for help, a centaur blowing a conch horn.

Then everything went black.

I woke with a drinking straw in my mouth. I was sipping something that tasted like liquid chocolate-chip cookies. Nectar.

I opened my eyes.

I was propped up in bed in the sickroom of the Big House, my right hand bandaged like a club. Argus stood guard in the corner. Justin sat next to me, holding my nectar glass and dabbing a washcloth on my forehead.

"Here we are again," I said.

Justin smiled at me, by that I knew he was happy to see me awake, but it vanished."You were green and turning gray when we found you. If it weren't for Chiron's healing ..."

"Now, now," Chiron's voice said. "Andrea's constitution deserves some of the credit."

He was sitting near the foot of my bed in human form, which was why I hadn't noticed him yet. His lower half was magically compacted into the wheelchair, his upper half dressed in a coat and tie. He smiled, but his face looked weary and pale, the way it did when he'd been up all night grading Latin papers.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Like my insides have been frozen, then microwaved."

"Apt, considering that was pit scorpion venom. Now you must tell me, if you can, exactly what happened."

Between sips of nectar, I told them the story. The room was quiet for a long time.

"I can't believe that Luke ..." Justin's voice faltered. His expression turned angry and sad. "Yes. Yes, I _can _believe it. May the gods curse him... He was never the same after his quest."

"This must be reported to Olympus," Chiron murmured. "I will go at once."

"Luke is out there right now," I said. "He's planning something bad and the gods see it coming. I have to go after him."

Chiron shook his head. "No, Andrea. The gods—"

"Won't even _talk _about Kronos," I snapped. "Zeus declared the matter closed!"

"Andrea, I know this is hard. But you must not rush out for vengeance. You aren't ready."

I didn't like it, but part of me suspected Chiron was right. One look at my hand, and I knew I wasn't going to be sword fighting any time soon. "Chiron ... your prophecy from the Oracle ... it was about Kronos, wasn't it? Was I in it?And Justin?"

Chiron glanced nervously at the ceiling. "Andrea, it isn't my place—"

"You've been ordered not to talk to me about it, haven't you?"

His eyes were sympathetic, but sad. "You will be a great hero, child. I will do my best to prepare you. But if I'm right about the path ahead of you …"

Thunder boomed overhead, rattling the windows.

"All right!" Chiron shouted. "Fine!"

He sighed in frustration. "The gods have their reasons, Andrea. Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing."

"We can't just sit back and do nothing," I said.

"_We _will not sit back," Chiron promised. "But _you _must be careful. Kronos wants you to come unraveled. He wants your life disrupted, your thoughts clouded with fear and anger. Do not give him what he wants. Train patiently. Your time will come."

"Assuming I live that long."

Chiron put his hand on my ankle. "You'll have to trust me, Andrea. You will live. But first you must decide your path for the coming year. I cannot tell you the right choice..." I got the feeling that he had a very definite opinion, and it was taking all his willpower not to advise me.

"But you must decide whether to stay at Camp Half-Blood year-round, or return to the mortal world for seventh grade and be a summer camper. Think on that. When I get back from Olympus, you must tell me your decision."

I wanted to protest. I wanted to ask him more questions. But his expression told me there could be no more discussion; he had said as much as he could.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," Chiron promised. "Argus will watch over you."

He glanced at Justin. "Oh, and, Justin ... whenever you're ready, they're here."

"Who's here?" I asked.

Nobody answered. Chiron rolled himself out of the room. I heard the wheels of his chair clunk carefully down the front steps, two at a time. Justin studied the ice in my drink.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

"Nothing." He set the glass on the table. "I … just took your advice about something. You … um … need anything?"

"Yeah. Help me up. I want to go outside."

"Andrea, that isn't a good idea."

I slid my legs out of bed. Justin caught me before I could crumple to the floor. A wave of nausea rolled over me.

"I'm fine," I insisted. I didn't want to lie in bed like an invalid while Luke was out there planning to destroy the Western world. I managed a step forward. Then another, still leaning heavily on Justin. Argus followed us outside, but he kept his distance.

By the time we reached the porch, my face was beaded with sweat. My stomach had twisted into knots. But I had managed to make it all the way to the railing.

It was dusk. The camp looked completely deserted. The cabins were dark and the volleyball pit silent. No canoes cut the surface of the lake. Beyond the woods and the strawberry fields, the Long Island Sound glittered in the last light of the sun.

"What are you going to do?" Justin asked me.

"I don't know."

I told him I got the feeling Chiron wanted me to stay year-round, to put in more individual training time, but I wasn't sure that's what I wanted. I admitted I'd feel bad about leaving him alone, though, with only Clarisse for company….

Justin pursed his lips, then said quietly, "I'm going home for the year, Andrea."

I stared at him. "You mean, to our dad's?"

He pointed toward the crest of Half-Blood Hill. Next to Thalia's pine tree, at the very edge of the camp's magical boundaries, a family stood silhouetted—two little children, a woman, and a tall man with blond hair. They seemed to be waiting.

"I wrote him a letter when we got back," Justin said. "Just like you suggested. I told him ... I was sorry. I'd come home for the school year if he still wanted me. He wrote back immediately. We decided ... we'd give it another try."

"That took guts."

He pursed his lips. "You won't try anything stupid during the school year, will you? At least … not without sending me an Iris-message?"

I managed a smile. "I won't go looking for trouble. I usually don't have to."

"When I get back next summer," he said, "we'll hunt down Luke. We'll ask for a quest, but if we don't get approval, we'll sneak off and do it anyway. Agreed?"

"Sounds like a plan worthy of Athena."

He held out his hand. I shook it.

"Take care, Seaweed Brain," Justin told me. "Keep your eyes open."

"You too, Wise One."

He was about to start walking to his family when I hugged him. He tensed then wrapped his arms around my waist. I whispered in his ear, "Sorry about Luke."

"I'm just glad you're okay."

I tightened my grip on him before I removed my arms and backed up a bit. He immediately said, "I thought you don't hug."

"Well, I guess your special."

He turned away from me and toward his family, but that didn't hide his flushed face from me,"See you next summer."

I smiled, "Bye."

I watched him walk up the hill and join his family. He gave his father an awkward one-armed hug and looked back at the valley one last time. He touched Thalia's pine tree, then allowed himself to be lead over the crest and into the mortal world.

For the first time at camp, I felt truly alone. I looked out at Long Island Sound and I remembered my father saying, _The sea does not like to be restrained._

I made my decision.

I wondered, if Poseidon were watching, would he approve of my choice?

"I'll be back next summer," I promised him. "I'll survive until then. After all, I am your daughter."

I asked Argus to take me down to cabin three, so I could pack my bags for home.

* * *

**In this chapter I wanted to show more of the relationship that Andrea has with Rosie (who she views as a second mother), sorry if you think it was a little much. **

**I hoped you like the story and I'll post a chapter on this one when the next story's up.**

**I love you all! Again, thanks for reading my story!**

**-xoxo OneOfTheGuys411102**


	24. Chapter 24

The series of one-shots are up!

But not the cupid cam, not yet. BUT soon.

Love y'all, OneOfTheGuys411102


	25. Chapter 25

The Sea of Monsters is UP!

P.S. Thanks to all of you who went to A Series of Events. You guys are awesome!


End file.
